In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, he deals with many fundamental difficulties of being a young black man being raised in the American south. Unlike many of his other works of fiction, this work covers autobiographically the life of Richard Wright. What one sees is the importance of he relationship between slavery, race and citizenship and how it has always been closely intertwined in the post-Civil War American society. On one hand, slavery was a cruel institution that was used to deny people of fundamental rights of citizenship such as freedom of movement, economic freedom and even freedom of having a family. They were not allowed to act out civil duties either, like vote, hold outside employment or take any sort of role in directing the course of their communities. However, what Wright’s book shows is that many of rights that were supposed to given following the end of slavery were still a very real battle for African Americans, especially in the American south.
The problems of being of the black race make themselves shown very early on in Wright’s work. For example, the earliest years of his life found himself and his family in extremely difficult socio-economic situations that were brought on by the nature of living in the south. According to Wright, his father had left his family for another woman and by the age of six he found himself a regular in the tavern, drinking alcohol as a child. Things became better for Wright when he was able to move with his family to Arkansas with his mother’s sister. However, here, too racism reared its ugly head. According to Wright, there was jealousy over the business being run by the black man his aunt had married. Wright called this “white jealousy” and a white man killed him after resenting the success a black man had in the business world. Here again one can see the link between race and citizenship. In the American capitalist system, the ability to start one’s own business and strive for success in it was foiled by the person’s race. The virtues of economic autonomy that are seen as a fundamental part of what it means to be a citizen in the United States were often made more difficult by one’s race.
All of these circumstances were exasperated by his race and his life was made more difficult because of them. He loved to learn throughout his time in school but he often found obstacles because he was trying to find his way as a black boy in a white educational system. The most apparent and violent instances of encountering racism occurred when he had become an adult and came out into the working world. Wright had the obstacle of not only being black in a time when American society was very racism but also a dynamic time when the industrializing nation was dealing with war and later a great economic depression. These issues made life more difficult for any one living in America, but particularly for a young black boy as Wright were. These issues show directly the relationship between being an American citizen and race in the case of Wright’s life.
Wright was able to get a job that he enjoyed at an optical shop. However, this was short lived. He was living in Jackson, Mississippi at the time. He was working at an optical shop however he was soon chased out of his job by two white people who did not believe that a black person should be serving in such a skilled position. This again is an example of the relationship between race and citizenship. Being a citizen in America typically affords you certain rights, such as freedom of employment. Being a black citizen in America during Richard Wright’s time did not offer this. Even though Wright’s boss had been positive about teaching a black man the trade of working in an optical shop, the pressures of society meant that he did little to defend Wright against the depression.
Wright wanted to move to the north as soon as he could. While the north still had problems of race, they were not as bad as the south and thus despite his race he would be able to pursue more opportunities of citizenship. He had to do some bad things, such as stealing, in order to get the money to move to Chicago. While Chicago was better than the south, he arrived there and still found himself facing racist problems. For example, just to survive and to lift himself out of destitution and poverty, he found himself often compromising his morals. He had to work for an insurance company that was manipulating money away from other poor black people. It was at this point that Wright became exposed to communism and this was probably the most influential doctrine in his life that shows the relationship between race and citizenship.
Marxism deals with race primarily as a class issue. That is, black people are not put in an inferior position racially necessarily as much as they are in terms of economic class. This stems from the fact that they do not control the means of production. In other words, they are only workers and the people who control the places they work are the ones with the real power. Thus, black people were living in neighborhoods and working at businesses exclusively owned and ran by white people. Therefore, the relationship between citizenship and race in regard to communist doctrines is that the power of individual citizens within a certain race is limited in their capacities to function based on the structure of American society and economy.
Wright’s work more than just an autobiography shows the power of race and its effects on individuals and society. The work is an observation on the power of racism and how it affects black people in the time of Richard Wright. What is really compelling about the book is that he shows racism not only affected individual blacks and whites and how they interacted but also how blacks dealt with blacks. The power of the book is that it shows the many levels racism worked. Wright was trying to be part of society, which often left him feeling alienated because of the color of his skin, but he was also trying to make his way as an individual. He was exploring many ideas and literatures that helped explain his experiences as a black man in an American society that made it difficult. The book is an insightful commentary on the relationship between race and citizenship in twentieth century America and the difficulties and hurdles.
