After reading a newspaper article in which a white man is denounced as a fool, the now nineteen-year-old Richard tries to get access to the public library by successfully enlisting the assistance of one of the white men who work in his factory.
Richard's reading, which becomes "a drug, a dope" for him, does more than introduce him to serious writers but awakens his dreams and made him look at the world differently. Richard's lens on the world is now focused by what he reads and the books enable Richard to feel connections to individuals who would have otherwise remained completely distant and unfathomable to him.
Richard also sees through his reading what he has missed in life and that his sense that the world was a hostile and brutal place was really a fact......
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