Product Description

Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful novellas collected here concerns an aspect of the lives of black people in the postslavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. Published in 1938, this was the first book from Wright, who would continue on to worldwide fame as the author of the novels Native Son and Black Boy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #471482 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-01
• Released on: 2003-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"The Library of America has insured that most of Wright'smajor texts are now available as he wanted them tobe read." -- -- Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review

Collection of four novellas by Richard Wright, published in 1938. The collection, Wright's first published book, was awarded the 1938 Story magazine prize for the best book written by anyone involved in the WPA Federal Writers' Project. Set in the American Deep South, each novella concerns an aspect of the lives of black people and explores their resistance to white racism and oppression. The stories are "Big Boy Leaves Home," "Down by the Riverside," "Long Black Song," and "Fire and Cloud." Thematically and stylistically they form a consistent whole. In 1940 an enlarged edition of Uncle Tom's Children was published. Subtitled "Five Long Stories," it also contained a nonfiction essay, "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," and a polemical short story, "Bright and Morning Star"; both additions were thought by critics to have damaged the literary integrity of the book. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

About the Author
Richard Wright won international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the black experience. He stands today alongside such African-American luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, and two of his novels, Native Son and Black Boy, are required reading in high schools and colleges across the nation. He died in 1960.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Ethics of Living Jim Crow

An Autobiographical Sketch

My first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite small. We were living in Arkansas. Our house stood behind the railroad tracks. Its skimpy yard was paved with black cinders. Nothing green ever grew in that yard. The only touch of green we could see was far away, beyond the tracks, over where the white folks lived. But cinders were good enough for me and I never missed the green growing things. And, anyhow, cinders were fine weapons. You could always have a nice hot war with huge black cinders. AH you had to do was crouch behind the brick pillars of a house with your hands full of gritty ammunition. And the first woolly black head you saw pop out from behind another row of pillars was your target. You tried your very best to knock it off. It was great fun.

I never fully realized the appalling disadvantages of a cinder environment till one day the gang to which I belonged found itself engaged in a war with the white boys who lived beyond the tracks. As usual we laid down our cinder barrage, thinking that this would wipe the white boys out. But they replied with a steady bombardment of broken bottles. We doubled our cinder barrage, but they hid behind trees, hedges, and the sloping embankments of their lawns. Having no such fortifications, we retreated to the brick pillars of our homes. During the retreat a broken milk bottle caught me behind the ear, opening a deep gash which bled profusely. The sight of blood pouring over my face completely demoralized our ranks. My fellow-combatants left me standing paralyzed in the center of the yard, and scurried for their homes. A kind neighbor saw me and rushed me to a doctor, who took three stitches in my neck.

I sat brooding on my front steps, nursing my wound and waiting for my mother to come from work. I felt that a grave injustice had been done me. It was all right to throw cinders. The greatest harm a cinder could do was leave a bruise. But broken bottles were dangerous; they left you cut, bleeding, and helpless.

When night fell, my mother came from the white folks' kitchen. I raced down the street to meet her. I could just feel in my bones that she would understand. I knew she would tell me exactly what to do next time. I grabbed her hand and babbled out the whole story. She examined my wound, then slapped me.

"How come yuh didn't hide?" she asked me. "How come yuh awways fightin?"

I was outraged, and bawled. Between sobs I told her that I didn't, have any trees or hedges to hide behind. There wasn't a thing I could have used as a trench. And you couldn't throw very far when you were hiding behind the brick pillars of a house. She grabbed a barrel stave, dragged me home, stripped me naked, and beat me till I had a fever of one hundred and two. She would smack my rump with the stave, and, while the skin was still smarting, impart to me gems of Jim Crow wisdom. I was never to throw cinders any more. I was never to fight any more wars. I was -never, never, under any conditions, to fight white folks again. And they were absolutely right in clouting me with the broken milk bottle. Didn't I know she was working hard every day in the hot kitchens of the white folks to make money to take care of me? When was I ever going to learn to be a good boy? She couldn't be bothered with my fights. She finished by telling me that I ought to be thankful to God as long as I lived that they didn't kill me.

All that night I was delirious and could not sleep. Each time I dosed my eyes I saw monstrous white faces suspended from the ceiling, leering at me.

From that time on, the charm of my cinder yard was gone. The green trees, the trimmed hedges, the cropped lawns grew very meaningful became a symbol. Even today when I dunk of white folks, the hard, sharp outlines of white houses surrounded by trees, lawns, and hedges are present somewhere in the background of my mind. Through the years they grew into an overreaching symbol of fear.

It was a long time before I came in close contact with white folks again. We moved from Arkansas to Mississippi. Here we had the good fortune not to live behind the railroad tracks, or close to white neighborhoods. We lived in the very heart of the local Black Belt. There were black churches and, black preachers; there were black schools and black teachers; black groceries and black clerks. In fact, everything was so solidly black that for a long time I did not even think of white folks, save in remote and vague terms. But this could not last forever. As one grows older one eats more. One's clothing costs more. When I finished grammar school I had to go to work. My mother could no longer feed and clothe me on her cooking job.

There is but one place where a black boy who knows no trade can get a job, and that's where the houses and faces are white, where the trees, lawns, and hedges are green. My first job was with an optical company in Jackson, Mississippi. The morning I applied I stood straight and neat before die boss, answering all his questions with sharp yessirs and nosirs. I was very careful to pronounce my sirs distinctly, in order that he might know that I was polite, that I knew where I was, and that I knew he was a white nun. I wanted that job badly.

Customer Reviews

racism stripped naked
Uncle Tom's Children is probably one of the most brutal books ever written on the topic of racism and racial oppression. The stories sneak their way into the far back of the reader's mind, and forces one to confront the racism latent within oneself. That is by no means a small feat for a book to accomplish, and it makes the reading both painful and powerful, sa well as infinitely rewarding. Personally, I don't recall ever having seen the ugliness of racism so brilliantly treated in any other work of literature, bar none. The addition of the autobiographical sketch and the extra story in some editions of this book is just a bonus, and does not decrease the value or importance of this masterpiece.

Riveting Masterpiece of Social Exposure and Racial Injustice
If white people today have any doubts of the harsh treatment of blacks in the 1900's, read this book. As a matter of fact, read the first 20 pages.
I teach this book to my 10th grade English class and my kids love this book! It is an easy read because the stories are so gripping, and the dialogue is written in the southern vernacular of the time. The main reason why high school students need this book now is because not only are the black students loosing sight of the past and appreciation for the efforts of black people, but the white students are unaware of the greatest crime in American History after slavery, Jim Crow Ethics. The Hispanic students, Asian students, African students, Indian students and countless other students from different parts of the world also need to read literature that enhances their knowledge of the brutal history of Americans.

Powerful stories about injustice
This 1938 collection of short stories by Richard Wright (1908-1960) was the first book the author had published. Wright had a remarkable talent for description, and he makes the reader feel as if alongside the main characters as the stories play out. These stories detail racial discrimination and oppression in the Deep South during the 1930's. I particularly liked his story about a flood that led to blacks being conscripted at gunpoint to work on the levee (and a tragic shooting that followed), plus his story about a planned hunger march that went against the wishes of the local (racist) government. Each story attacks southern racial injustice in a concise and powerful manner.

Two years after this book was published, Wright burst into fame with NATIVE SON, and he followed a few years later with BLACK BOY and THE OUTSIDER. This collection of short stories isn't Wright's best work, but it demonstrates the author's budding talent.