BLACK BOY READING GUIDE

Remember, our first book, Black Boy, is due on the 30th of this month.
As you read, think about these questions:

• Wright grew up in the Jim Crow South. What aspects of society were segregated? Where do you see this segregation in Black Boy. How does this book attack the violence and oppression of the South?
• What is the role of women in this book? How does Wright rebel against the authority of women around him?
• At what points in the book does Wright experience a mental awakening? What causes each of these?
• Wright tried to join the Army in 1942, but he was not accepted. In fact, according to one biographer, Wright recognized “that not enough serious consideration was being paid to the paradox of western democracies’ fighting against fascism while these same democracies, particularly America, maintained rigid segregation throughout the armed forces…His bitterness and anger were channeled into his work. This book was to be called Black Boy.”
  (John Williams, The Most Native of Sons 77)
  Is this book bitter and angry? Where?
• On 142(in my book), "now at last I could have reading in the home." HOW IMPORTANT IS READING TO RICHARD? Does he have to fight for that? Ummm, any lessons to be learned here?
• How historically relevant and accurate is this book? Is this simply one man's experience, or does it represent accurately the experiences of others in the nation at that time?

THIS IS NOT ALL WE'LL DISCUSS, AND NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO WRITE DOWN ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS AND BRING THEM TO CLASS. YOU SHOULD, HOWEVER, READ WITH THESE IDEAS IN MIND.