Richard Wright’s Right To Write in Black Boy
Richard Wright’s memoir Black Boy tells the story of his life growing up as a black boy in the Jim Crow south of America. One of the most important aspects of Wright’s childhood is his relationship with religion. Wright comes from a very devoutly religious family but says of himself that “while listening to the vivid language of the sermons I was pulled toward emotional belief, but as soon as I went out of the church and saw the bright sunshine and felt the throbbing life of the people in the streets I knew that none of it was true and nothing would happen” (103). Wright can not bring himself to believe in, or devote himself to God or religion. The american Bill of Rights protects the freedom of religion in its first amendment signifying religion as an aspect of humanity intrinsic to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness set out in the Declaration of Independence. In Black Boy Wright replaces the spiritual fulfillment most find in religion with the act of writing. Through deliberately replacing religion with writing, and his righteous fight to write Wright subtly, but strongly argues that the freedom to create literature, art, and culture is an equal human right to the freedom of religion.
Throughout Black Boy Wright writes about the different chapters in his life that gradually lead to his desire to become a writer. Contrasting his childhood skepticism of religion Wright describes his first encounters reading stories by stating that “though they were merely stories, I accepted them as true because I wanted to believe them, because I hungered for a different life, for something new” (emphasis added 129). Wright finds the faith he could never muster up in church, and places it into his love of storytelling. Tellingly it is not just Wright’s belief in these stories that is powerful it is his desire to believe. Wright stubbornly, and to the damage of multiple familial relationships resists any kind of belief in religion, but he freely, and with enthusiasm finds faith in the act of storytelling. The human desire to believe in religion is conflated with the desire to believe in stories, and Wright presents that second desire as one worthy of protection through his connection of the two faiths.
The best example of Wright replacing religion in his life with storytelling comes from his telling of the first story he wrote. After a promise made to his Grandmother to try and pray to find God Wright quickly grew bored. First he “took the Bible, pencil, paper, and rhyming dictionary and tried to write verses for hymns,” and this is the first instance of Wright trying to be a creative writer (120). His first attempt to write is a compromise between his passion to create, and his family’s passion for religion. This does not work out, but Wright does eventually succeed in writing a short story about an Indian Girl during his quiet time set aside for prayer. After finishing the story he describes that “I was excited...I had never in my life done anything like it; I had made something, no matter how bad it was; and it was mine” (120). The story of the Indian Girl marks Wright’s first creative endeavor, and it fills him with the excitement and feeling that the prayer, and religion that bored him never could. This short story is the first stone in the path to Wright’s literary career that would eventually lead to the writing of the memoir itself. Wright’s first story comes from writing instead of praying as he literally replaces the one act for the other. In doing so Wright equates in both his own personal life, but also to the world at large the literary with the religious. Writing, and the act of devotion to literature becomes the same as prayer and the act of devotion to religion.
The linking of Wrights literary career with religion is not new as Robert Butler writes in his essay that Wright “took on the role of a writer who would do much more than articulate a personal vision and began to see his writing as his grandmother had envisioned her religion and church, as a powerful means of transforming the world” (Pg 54). However, I argue that through the scene where he writes his first story instead of praying Wright does not only turn literature into a tool to transform the world, but turns it into a freedom akin to the freedom of religion. Though no one understands or supports Wright’s desire to write he fights for the chance to write whenever he can anyway. Wright writes that “I strove to master words...That was the single aim of my living” (280). He makes literature, and writing something devout, something to be fought for, and something to be used to explain the suffering in the world. More than that Wright makes writing an integral part of his human existence claiming the act of putting pen to paper, as inate a right as kneeling in church. By doing this Write equates literature, art, and culture as fundamental human experiences to be protected with the same zeal as the right to religion.
Works Cited
Butler, Robert. “Seeking Salvation in a Naturalistic Universe: Richard Wright's Use of His Southern Religious Background in Black Boy (American Hunger).” Southern Quarterly, Vol 46, no.2, 2009, pp 46-60. ProQuest,
Wright, Richard. Black Boy. HarperCollins, 1944.