A state's shameful history

“The white folks ain never gimme a chance! They ain never give no black man a chance! There ain nothing in you whole life yuh kin keep from em! They take yo lan! They take yo women! N then they take yo life!”

Richard Wright writes of the Mississippi that no one wants to speak of even today. To read what Wright wrote is to recall a shameful period in our history as witnessed through the eyes of a survivor.

The Mississippi Reads selection for 2008 is Richard Wright's 'Uncle Tom's Children.' Mississippi Reads is a statewide initiative to encourage all Mississippians to read and discuss a work of fiction written by a Mississippian. The 2009 choice is Eudora Welty's 'Collected Stories.'

Five novellas and an essay, 'The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,' make up 'Uncle Tom's Children.' Published in 1938, it was Wright's first book and received almost universal praise. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt commented in her New York World-Telegram column that it was 'beautifully written and so vivid that I had a most unhappy time reading it.' Read more