I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it
Richard Wrightthere are times when life's ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed
Richard WrightBut the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target
Richard WrightIn me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness, a mode of being that the way of life about me had said could not be, must not be, and upon which the penalty of death had been placed. Somewhere in the dead of the southern night my life had switched onto the wrong track and without my knowing it, the locomotive of my heart was rushing down a dangerously steep slope, heading for a collision, heedless of the warning red lights that blinked all about me, the sirens and the ells and the screams that filled the air.
Richard Wright