Robert Rosen

Black Boy, by Richard Wright, was published 80 years ago. The edition I finally got around to reading (and came across by happenstance) contained only the first part, "Southern Night." I didn't know there was a second part, "The Horror and the Glory," until I started writing this. There's no point in reviewing a book I've only half read. Anybody interested in a detailed review can find one elsewhere.

But there are a few things I want to say about the first half of Black Boy. For starters, it's the best memoir I've ever read. I can't think of any other autobiographical work that comes close to this book's raw emotional power. It gives you a visceral sense of what it was like to grow up Black in the Jim Crow South of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee in the first half of the 20th century. (Wright was born in 1908.) Yes, I understood what Jim Crow meant: lynching, segregated schools, Black-and-white water fountains, back of the bus, etc. But I didn't fully understand the everyday fear, humiliation, intimidation, and hopelessness of every ordinary interaction with both white people and Black. There's a disturbing scene on virtually every page.

One more thing: When Donald Trump says, "Make America Great Again," the America of Black Boy is what he's talking about.

Now I've got to read the second half of the book, which solves the problem of what to read next. The first half of Black Boy is a tough act to follow.

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