Results tagged “Richard Wright” from book/daddy

The African-American Museum in Dallas is presenting a celebration symposium of author Richard Wright this weekend to mark the centennial of his birth. Surrounding the symposium are a number of lectures and book club meetings.

Elaine Johnson: "Richard Wright was probably one of the first books that I read. But I didn't remember Black Boy and so when I read it again, I found it quite interesting that a lot of the racism - to me, it's like, 'Ooh, this reminded me of things today - especially with the election going on.'"

Elaine Johnson is a member of the Black Pearls Keeping It Real Book Club in Dallas. On this particular Saturday afternoon, the club has met at a Half-Price Bookstore to discuss Black Boy, Richard Wright's 1945 autobiography. It's his account of growing up in the South in the 1910s and '20s and escaping to Chicago.

Wright's family was so isolated, he didn't really encounter many white people until he was nearly in his teens. Because his father abandoned Wright's mother, the family was so desperately poor they ate lard gravy as a daily meal. As a result, Wright was seriously malnourished: By the time he was 20, he failed his first job application at the Post Office. He couldn't meet the minimum weight requirement of 120 pounds.

Wright's original title for Black Boy was -- American Hunger.

Doris Nelson is another Black Pearl member. She found the book's extreme poverty and isolation hard to get past at first: