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Black Boy Essay

The famous American writer Richard Wright had a terrible upbringing. He had to deal with his fathers abandonment, his mothers abusiveness, the anxiety of constantly moving houses, and worst of all the terrible racial prejudice of his time. Wright grew up in the first quarter century of the 1900s in the most racially separated part of America, the South. The problems stemming from his family only added to the problems he faced every day for being black. Whites would abuse Wright in many ways, physically abusive, verbally abusive, and the worst of all to Wright, politically abusive whites. In Richard Wright\'s book, Black Boy, he wrote about his childhood in Mississippi. Wright wrote about experiences he had that show the racial segregation of the South. This racial prejudice affected Richard Wright so much, that it changed his life when he was growing up in the South.
Racial prejudice often leads to physical violence. Many times in his book, Richard Wright told about violence happening to himself or other people. All this violence has one thing in common, they happen only because of the black skin of the people. Wright told about a time when he was attacked by a group of angry white teenagers. Their car drove by Richard who was walking to work and offered him a ride. \"‘All set?\'\" they asked. \"‘Yes sir\'\" Richard answered and, before he knew it, one of the boys threw an empty bottle at Richard, knocking him off the moving car. \"Dazed, I pulled to my feet. My elbows and legs were bleeding.\" As Richard stood up, the one who threw the bottle told Richard that he should talk with more respect to white people, and told him, \"‘You\'re a lucky bastard, ‘cause if you\'d said that to some other white man, you might been a dead nigger now.\'\" Previously, Richard had only heard stories of racial violence toward blacks, now he had felt it himself. This experience was the first act of violence toward him, and his views of whites in the South were now filled with...

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