Rating: 
Summary: A soulful child
Review: Black Boy is one of those books that every race, ethnic group, culture, religon, and belief should read especially black people. Black Boy is a book that helps open the minds of other races about how black people had to live in those days, and for black people it is a good book that helps us to remember where we came from, and how far it brought us from those days. Black Boy is a book that helps alot of people well it helped me to get a better understanding on my Black heritage and how my family and other Black families reached the point where we can look back and not be mad at what happeded to black people in those days.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Of my four years in high school, none was as difficult as my sophomore year. Filled with uncertainty and soul-searching, I am happy to have found solace in the book that I had read during those times of unrest. One such book was Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy. Haunting and outrageous, Wright exposes that 300-year old lies that American had lived. He shows the brutality of growing up in the American South and the sorrow of growing up with neither true friends nor true family. This should be mandatory reading for all Americans, black or white. Everyone will get something out of it.
Rating:
Summary: Black Boy
Review: As a very poor inner city youth living in Kingston, Jamaica in the 1970's and early 1980's, this book was a guiding star for me. This book has caused me to realised that amidst the hardships one can acheive. This book is among the most inspiring I have ever read, it has motivated me during my high school and college years. I cannot find my copy of this great book, I intend to purchase a copy and have it as a permanent fixture in my household.
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Summary: Richard Wright was misunderstood
Review: A very interesting book about the story of a young black professional (Richard Wright) growing up in early 20th Century America. Discusses his life, his career path, his flirtation with the Communist party, and more.Richard Wright was one of the more misunderstood figures of his time. I recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: offputting
Review: Nothing in the following should be taken to in any way minimize the horrors and degradation of racism. However, while Richard Wright's classic account of his upbringing in the Jim Crow South remains a powerful indictment of a system of repression and dehumanization which indelibly stain's this great nation's history, the book is somehow simply not a compelling text. Wright never really engages the reader emotionally nor wins our empathy. It, thus, seems more important as a historical document than central to the Western Canon. The primary reason for this is that Richard Wright, as he portrays himself in the book, is just an *expletive deleted*. And while it is certainly legitimate to argue that he is merely a creation of the malignant system of segregation and racial hatred, the history of the South and of other racist regimes (i.e., Nazi Germany) suggest that he is not an inevitable product of the system. The Richard Wright that he presents is so brutal, bitter and hate filled, that he is impossible to care about. He stands in stark contrast to the many still generous, hope filled, decent people who emerged from this same oppression (or others like it); people whose positive vision and dream of freedom brought down Jim Crow within a generation. Moreover, he compares unfavorably to the survivors of the Death Camps and the Gulag and the other heinous criminal enterprises of the century, who emerged from experiences that were at least as brutal and seemingly soul deadening to produce a body of literature that is instead life affirming. This is not to suggest that Wright's experiences and reactions and personal development are unworthy of notice and study, rather, I would suggest that we have more to gain by studying Elie Weisel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Vassily Grossman and Anchee Min and their like, who have turned similar experiences into a testament of hope and human dignity rather than one of despair. I know you aren't supposed to say these kinds of things in our politically correct age, but I disliked the Richard Wright of this memoir too strongly to genuinely care about his life. And this feeling of disgust towards his character, allowed at least this reader an unfortunate psychic distance from the revulsion one should feel towards the circumstances and environment of his youth. More troubling though than the fact that I had this reaction, is that many comments by young readers on the Web and at Amazon indicate that they shared this reaction. If the texts that they are supposed to be learning about Segregation from are instead putting them off, the way that this one does, that is a serious matter. GRADE: C
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Summary: Banned in Mississippi - It must be good!
Review: In a way, Richard Wright is the ultimate American success story. Born into unbelievable poverty and racism, denied access to a complete education, victimized by a family that couldn't understand him, he nonetheless rose to become of the most acclaimed writers in the history of this country. Can anyone reading this book today in the US possibly understand what its like to always, always be hungry? More than merely recounting his life, he recounts the development of his understanding of his life and the life of African Americans in the early part of the century. His involvement with the communist party, while not as interesting to me as his childhood, is still quite interesting. As you read you see the changes he undergoes and among other things, you kind of wish he'd find a bit of happiness. This book was declared obscene in the 1950's by a congressman from the south, it was banned in Mississippi, if a better endorsement for the truth it represent is to be found, I have not come across it.
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Summary: Always a spot on your bookshelf for this one. . .
Review: Because I am bi-racial (Black and Filipino)and was raised by my grandparents, I never knew anything about the "African American Experience" other than the mini-series Roots. I stumbled across Black Boy while hoping to find a book to hold me over until a book from my favorite author was out. I came across Black Boy, read a few pages, bought it, and fell in love with it. This book opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed. I found myself feeling every emotion while reading this book. For the five days it took me to read this wonderful book, I felt like I was actually experiencing the hunger, the embarassment, anger, frustration, pride, and confusion that is so wonderfully written about in the book. This book changed my life becuase I now have a real person's perspective of the way the world USED to be, which brought me to the understanding that both my Black and Filipino ancestors had struggles to find their place in this country...and I am so greatful to be a part of this county. To me, reading this book as like having a conversation with an older uncle sharing his life's experiences with me so that I might be able to appreciate the dramatic differences in our lives. This book is a really interesting and amusing read. I made room for it on my aready packed bookshelf.It sits right beside another of my favorites, To Kill A Mockingbird.
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Summary: Another piece of the composite picture that is US History.
Review: Providing yet another perspective on the unique experience of the black man in 20th century America, Wright's life is characterized by his burning desire to express himself through writing, and to establish an identity for himself as a black man in America. Beginning with his childhood in the Deep South, which was affected heavily by the presence of the Jim Crow laws, Wright eventually travels North to Chicago. Like Ellison's protagonist in Invisible Man, Wright finds himself an enthusiastic member of the developing Communist Party, who is eventually black-listed and exiled when his humane actions violate some fundamental Communist tenet. Of particular interest to me was Wright's insight into the allure which the Communist Party held for the American Negro -- the Party offered unity and solidarity, regardless of race, which was not offered or even suggested by any other organization of the time. As a result, the motivation of Wright (and Ellison, and countless other Negroes) to join the Communist Party becomes more understandable. While Black Boy did not affect me as significantly as Invisible Man, it was an excellent autobiography, and an interesting personal account. Wright's life-long struggle to express himself seems to have paid off, because in this text, his ideas come across loud and clear.
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Summary: My SAT Prep. Review
Review: I emphatically recommend Richard Wright's Black Boy to all mature audiences. It would be pretense for any reader of this incredible autobiography to speak of anything less than being riveted by such an extraordinary account of southern America in the early twentieth century. In Richard Wright's Black Boy, readers can learn more about the effects that America's enthralling treatment of African Americans had on the country in Jim Crow south. Richard Wright's life experiences in Black Boy will give readers a predilection towards other American historical autobiographies, as well.
Rating:
Summary: Black Boy
Review: Black Boy was and incrdible book. I am only in the 8th grade and I injoyed the book very much.It showed the many hardships that took place in a young black boys life in the 1920's.
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