Uncle Tom's Children Summary
Richard Wright

Uncle Tom's Children Summary

Richard Wright's Uncle Tom's Children is a work made up of six distinct parts that include a nonfiction introductory essay followed by five fictional stories.

"The Ethics of Jim Crow" describes Wright's own experiences growing up. The essay starts with his first encounter with racism, when his attempt to play a war game with white children turns ugly, and follows his experiences with the problems of being black in the South through his adolescence and adulthood. It describes his experience of prejudice at his first job. While working at an optical factory, his white fellow employees bully and eventually beat him for wanting to learn job skills that could allow him to advance. Wright also discusses suffering attacks by white youths and explores the many hypocrisies of white prejudice against blacks. These include black men being allowed to work around naked white prostitutes while having to pretend they do not... View more of the Uncle Tom's Children Summary