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Black Boy

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I recently read Black Boy by Richard Wright and I must say it is an amazing book. The book is about Richard growing up in the South in the early 1900's. It may sound a little boring but believe me it's not. Richard had a hard life growing up and that's what makes the book so interesting. Burning up houses, killing cats, and becoming a drunk were just some of the things he did before reaching the age of eight. The thing I like most about him is how he grew up very poor, moved from place to place, including an orphanage, never completed two consecutive school years, and still managed to become a well-educated young man and a world-famous writer. Although the book was very interesting there were some parts at the end that I felt were a little boring, but maybe that's just me. Either way, I think Richard Wright was a very talented writer, and if you get the chance, you should read his autobiography, Black Boy. I recommend this book to anyone over the age of thirteen that is interested in learning about history or just likes to read about some hardships other people had to face growing up.

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.

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.

Black Boy is about pain, hunger, and deprivation. For because of the white man, Richard is hungry, lost, and insecure. But the most important message of Black Boy is the deprivation of human existence that all blacks had to endure at that time. Richard's words are very insightful, because they question the same establishment and the same white race that burns the vessels on which racial equality floats today. Black Boy is again a reminder of our civic duty to defy racism in our euphoric state of justice, and save the lives of countless victims of white greed, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Richard Wright beschreibt im "Black Boy" seine eigene Jugend als Schwarzer in der Zeit um 1912 sehr realistisch
und anschaulich.
Wer Englischlernender ist findet hier eine unterhaltsame und manches Mal traurige Story, die keine Langeweile
aufkommen läßt.

Richards Wrights Autobiographie seiner Kindheit und Jugend im US-amerikanischen Süden zur Zeit der Rassentrennung zwischen den zwei Weltkriegen ist eigentlich ein Standardwerk über dem Alltag einer schwarzen Familie zu dieser Zeit. Ohne den Hang zu Kitsch und Pathos wie in "Onkel Toms Hütte" erzählt Wright in einer einfachen, auch in Englisch leicht lesbaren und doch sehr poetischen Sprache von seinen Erinnerungen an das Aufwachsen in einer rein schwarzen Gemeinde, seiner ersten Erkenntnis, dass es auch weiße Menschen gibt und dass diese aus irgendeinem für das Kind zunächst überhaupt nicht nachvollziehbaren Grund den schwarzen Menschen grundsätzlich zu dieser Zeit übergeordnet sind, seinem aus der Furcht vor dem Ku-Klux-Klan aufkeimenden Hass gegen Weiße während der Pubertät und schließlich seiner Erkenntnis als junger Erwachsener, dass nur zwei Dinge ihn aus diesen Lebensumständen befreien können: eine gute Ausbildung und ein Umzug in den Norden der USA. Wright erzählt in Episoden und man merkt, wie nah die Erinnerung bei ihm war, als er die Geschichten niederschrieb. Obwohl manches Geschehene düster ist, wobei Wrights dann oft stoischer Stil das Unfassbare fast banal klingen lässt - so war es damals eben, dem muss man nichts hinzufügen, hier muss nichts ausgeschmückt oder noch mehr dramatisiert werden - wenn er trocken und sachlich von Misshandlungen Schwarzer und Lynchmord, dem auch sein Onkel zu Opfer fällt, berichtet.
Andere Stellen lassen dann aber auch Raum für humorvolle Schilderungen und zwischenmenschliche Einblicke in die eigene Familie und nachbarschaftliche Umgebung. So ist zwei der freundlichsten Menschen, denen Richard begegnet, eine weiße Frau, die ihn als Hausgehilfe beschäftigt, damit er zur Schule gehen kann, und ein weißer Fabrikarbeiter, der ihm seine Büchereikarte gibt (Schwarze durften keine Bücher ausleihen), weil der Mann selbst auf der Arbeit schikaniert wird (er ist Jude) und Richards Situation nachempfinden kann.

Wrights Werk wäre eigentlich geschaffen, ein Standardunterrichtswerk zu sein, doch da der Autor später der kommunististischen Partei beitrat, wurden seine Werke in den USA wenig gewürdigt und beworben, so dass sie auch größtenteils nicht weiterverkauft und in Europa verlegt und übersetzt wurden.
Sehr empfehlenswert für Lehrer der gymnasialen Oberstufe, die gute Texte für die Themen "The Afro-American Experience" und "The American South" suchen.

Do you like reading about racism and suspense? If you are then Black Boy by Richard Wright is the book for you. Richard Wright describes his life as a Black Boy living in the Jim Crow South. He had to learn how to make a living and support himself after his father left him. His mother also became ill. Richard grew up with poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and lashed out in anger at those around him including his family. He had to killed and tortured animals when he was a six-year-old just to survive. He also drank at bars. He was surrounded on the one side by whites that were either very different on him. In the stories he explain that whites are cruel, while blacks resented anyone who tries to rise above them. I really didn't have any favorite parts because this book didn't seem very interesting, maybe because it has a lot of racism in the book or maybe I don't know the black culture. Towards at the end of the book, Richard and his family keep struggling moving to the North. They had a lot of obstacles moving North. But at the end they finally did it. If you want to know more about Black living in the South during the 1930s, I would recommend this book to you. Black Boy will make you mad, laugh, and make you think what it was like living in the South. But For me, this book wasn't the best book that I ever read.

I recently read Black Boy by Richard Wright and I must say it is an amazing book. The book is about Richard growing up in the South in the early 1900's. It may sound a little boring but believe me it's not. Richard had a hard life growing up and that's what makes the book so interesting. Burning up houses, killing cats, and becoming a drunk were just some of the things he did before reaching the age of eight. The thing I like most about him is how he grew up very poor, moved from place to place, including an orphanage, never completed two consecutive school years, and still managed to become a well-educated young man and a world-famous writer. Although the book was very interesting, there were some parts at the end that I felt were a little boring, but maybe that's just me. Either way, I think Richard Wright was a very talented writer, and if you get the chance, you should read his autobiography, Black Boy. I recommend this book to anyone over the age of thirteen that is interested in learning about history or just likes to read about some hardships other people had to face growing up.

In general, _Black Boy_ was a fantastic book. I bought this while on a trip in California and stayed up at night to read it on the bathroom floor while everyone else slept. Totally worthwhile! It's difficult not to be drawn in to this man's tale of oppression and frustration - whether or not you want to feel what it was to be Black in the past century, you will feel it.

The issue of Communism toward the end of the novel caused me to lose interest - both because I'm not politically-minded and not at all interested in that sort of conclusion. I wanted the protagonist to come out a hero of sorts - instead the book becomes bogged down with politics and the young man being dragged into a herd mentality that is a turn-off for a reader looking for a meatier ending.

Also recommended: The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

This book was required reading for my daughter's high school English class. She handed it to me one day and said "Mom, this is a powerful book. I think you'd like it a lot!" So I began to read the book and she was right. I loved it.

I grew up in the South in the 1960's and I love books about life in the deep south. This book is (sadly) very believable and really enlarged my sense of compassion for humanity and more precisely, opened my eyes ever more to the core issues of racial prejudice.

The language is graphic and some descriptions are pretty rough. As a prior poster said - it is not a book for anyone under 16. It is a book for mature audiences, only.

But what a book. It's one of those rare books that gives a real paradigm shift. Things suddenly look quite different after you've finished reading this book.