Extra Credit

Although slavery had been abolished, a new and sinister mechanism of oppression took hold of the post-civil war era. The African American community struggled to participate in society in the face of Jim Crow.

Richard Wright describes childhood through the eyes of a young black man. As he is growing up he is faced with different challenges that require leave him with a good understanding of how African American’s were being harassed, intimidated, brutalized, and even murdered. Wright’s asserts that white racism in the South was widespread and commonplace.

A variety of situations are presented in the text. The first is an encounter with local white boys. The main character engages in a mock battle with neighborhood boys. The throw harmless cinders from the nearby railroad tracks and the white boys return with salvos of glass bottles. A second encounter is when the main character goes to work for an optical company. His coworkers refuse to train him for any meaningful work, and later confront him with unfounded accusations. Under threat of a bludgeoning and with no recourse the main character is forced to leave the jobsite never to return. Additional experiences are provided to further the notion that southern whites engaged in truly abominable behavior in a concerted effort to physically and mentally intimidate African Americans.

Wright implies that the methods and instances of intimidation and brutality were commonplace. Wright also assumes that the experiences detailed by the main character are both true and not exaggerated. The excerpt is from a book called Uncle Tom’s Children first published in 1937, and we can assume that the unethical treatment was in fact still going on or those who the book was based on were no more than a generation removed.

Evidence that leads to different conclusion: The evidence presented seems to run in step with some of the other works by Takaki and Johnson. The physical brutality described is consistent with Takaki as well as Zinn. The psychological oppression described is similar to the chapters in Johnson’s book. The article describes the aftermath of the abolition of slavery. The slaves were freed from the oppressive hands of the wealthy whites only to enter into a more hostile environment dominated by the poor whites of the time.

It is hard to put into words the distain I have for the perpetrators of violence and intimidation described in the text. The callousness with which they treated the African Americans was astounding, and it is a lesson of which I gladly will not repeat.