Racism

The first half of the book takes place in the segregated South of the early 1900’s. The treatment of black people is brutal and dehumanizing. The author tells about the horrific treatment that he and other blacks suffer at the hands of whites. In the second half of the book he focuses on the effect of that brutal treatment on black people. Even when Negroes are able to leave the violent South with its Jim Crow laws, they have been so denied and beaten down that most seem unable to think for themselves or aspire to very much in life.

Violence

Violence is a part of Richard’s life from his earliest days when his mother almost beat him to death. In his early years, before he has much association with white people, he suffers violence mostly from his family. Beatings are an accepted means of punishment in...