Black Boy

Black Boy
Richard Wright’s memoir traces his childhood and early adulthood in the Jim Crow South and later Chicago, showing how poverty, racism, and a hunger for knowledge shaped him as a writer. Born in Mississippi in 1908, Wright endures a harsh, often violent upbringing: an absent father, a deeply religious but strict mother, and constant moves among relatives. He experiences racial prejudice early—on the street, at school, and in menial jobs—and begins to question both the social order and the religious faith imposed on him. Books become his refuge and his route to independence. In his teens and twenties he struggles to find work, joins and then breaks with the Communist Party, and tries to articulate a voice for Black experience in America. Black Boy is both a personal narrative of survival and a broader indictment of systemic racism, charting Wright’s development from fearful child to politically aware, rebellious writer.