Black Boy Book Essay

Nicole Beato
10B
Book Project
Black Boy

North and south. Rain and Sun. Happy and Sad. Black and White. Story of a child and his hardship, livingin southern United States, Defining the moments that changed him forever. Richard was a young boy that yearned for love and attention from his family, however love andattention was far from what he received. His father abandoned their family when he was only 6 years old, leaving only his mother to care for him and his brother. With noone to look to but god, she used religion as a Band-Aid to cover the hurt and pain she felt from her everyday struggles. And since religion didn’t put food on the table,Richard had a hard time accepting god’s ability to provide for his family. Richard grandmothers constant pleading for him to come to god, drove a tense between them. Peopleoffered him food to satisfy hi hunger; he realized early on that food could not satisfy his thirsty for knowledge, so he began to look inside himself to help fill hisbold. He learned that knowledge and education were something that no one could ever take from him. So he turns to his education to seen the filament that no food couldprovide. Richard found filament in writing. Writing releases him from his normal life. A quote that could tell you everything what this book is about is the meaning of livingcame only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless struggle. In the south in that time you couldn’t do anything without asking permission. Somethingthat I found surprising about this book is that every time that Richard was getting something positive in his life his family hold him back, his grandmother, religion.