Richard Wright SUBMITTED BY – ASHISH GOYAL

Born. September 4, 1908 Plantation, Roxie, Mississippi Died Born September 4, 1908 Plantation, Roxie, Mississippi Died November 28, 1960 (aged 52) Paris Occupation Novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer Nationality United States Genres Drama, Fiction, Non-fiction Notable work(s) Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy, The Outsider

“Our history is far stranger than you suspect, and we are not what we seem” –Richard Wright

12 Million Black Voices

Richard Wright's 12 Million Black Voices, first published in 1941, is an impassioned essay on the African-American experience: the highs and lows, the triumph and the tragedy, from slavery to Emancipation and sharecropping, to the great Northern migration and life in the urban ghetto. One wouldn't think it possible to distill over two hundred years of African-American life into few pages of text, and in such a beautifully poetic manner, but Wright succeeds brilliantly. Introduction

Every Where He Is In Chains Man Is Born Free But Every Where He Is In Chains

About The Prose

The author, himself an African-American, has describe the miserable condition of the blacks in USA. The term ‘Negro’, says the author, itself suggests slavery . A negro( meaning fiat) is meant to receive commands. Even after a hundred years of abolition of slavery, a negro remains a slave amid whites. Majority of the African-Americans are tillers of land. When freedom for the blacks was proclaimed, they could hardly believe they were free. They moved about aimlessly from place to place just to have a feel of the freedom. Their womenfolk were kept by the white lords running grocery stores, barbers shops, etc. Many of them went for their work to the lands and were engaged as sharecroppers. They worked in cotton fields, as cotton was in great demand.

Summary

The term ‘Negro’ : the author remarks that the term negro carries the meaning of fiat which means command from a superior authority. Thus the term has sunk into the minds of the Afro-Americans reducing them to the position of slaves. Generation of these Afro-Americans have lived with the feeling that they have no rights, no claims to happiness amidst this sea of white humanity. They have lived under slavery for a long period of 30 years. This slavery left them numb. Scores of years will pass before they are able to tell how this subjugation has affected them. Miserable lives of the African-American : more than half of the blacks in the USA are tillers of the soil. 3/4th of these tillers are share croppers and day laborers. The land they till is beautiful but the lives of

the blacks tillers is ugly the blacks tillers is ugly. As the author telling the remarks:’… it is hard to tell of the iron that lies beneath the surface of our quiet dull days’. Their miserable life is in sharp contrast to the blissful idyllic pictures of the farms portrayed by the artists. he blacks do at times feel the impulse to change their lives and better than lot but they are afraid of the whites. They are just left wondering if the whites would allow them to do so. A new kind of slavery, sharecropping : when the emancipation poclamation was signed and slavery abolished there were about 40 lacs black s working on the lands. They were puzzled by this sudden freedom and didn’t know what to do. They ofcourse wanted to keep their families united so they turned to their

A new kind of slavery, sharecropping : when the emancipation proclamation was signed and slavery abolished there were about 40 lakhs black s working on the lands. They were puzzled by this sudden freedom and didn’t know what to do. They of course wanted to keep their families united so they turned to their previous masters for work. The masters offered them share cropping which was nothing but a new kind of bondage of slavery. They bound by the terms of the agreement, tilled the soil and got some share of the crops in return. Life of black women : other black men left the plantations , they were borne on. They wandered of to distant places just to get a feel of their freedom. During those early days of the freedom, women fared better than man. In fact even during the slavery periods these women were allowed into

the mansions of the white lords the mansions of the white lords. There they learned manners and were told how to cook, sew and nurse. After independence of these women, grown old were retained to act as mammies or mothers to bring up the black children. Such women commanded respect in their families and even acted as arbiters in family disputes. Black men who wandered off : the black men who wandered off took up petty jobs or they joined petty trades like running grocery stores, barber shops, burial societies, etc. in early spring when weather turned favorable they approached the land owners for tilling the land. They were allowed to do it as share croppers, since cotton was in great demand they were made to grow cotton.

Credits -Ashish Goyal Roll Number-2114 B.Com (1)