black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness.

Richard Wright

We invented a medium of exchange, mined silver and gold, made pottery and cutlery, we fashioned tools and utensils of brass, bronze, ivory, quartz, and granite.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Brass Bronze exchange Fashion Granite Made Medium Silver Utensil
The holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Country Evil Fact Frightened High History Holy Necessity Process White
But the color of a Negro’s skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target
RICHARD WRIGHT

Color Convert Defense Make Recognizable Skin Suspect Target
It would have been impossible for me to have told anyone what I derived from these novels, for it was nothing less than a sense of life itself.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Abiding Anyone Book Derive Impossible Less Novel Support Told
Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed…It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Expression Individuality Oppressed Personal Strategy Violence
You usually take it for granted and think you know us, but our history is far stranger than you suspect, and we are not what we seem.
RICHARD WRIGHT

City Grant History Pavement Seem Stranger Suspect Take Think
I could think of nothing. And, slowly, it was upon exactly that nothingness that my mind began to dwell, that constant sense of wanting without having, of being hated without reason.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Began Constant Could Hate Mind Nothingness Reason Sense Slowly Upon Want
If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Anything Bed Confess Face Lie Lying Man Men Stare
Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Integrity Men Realization Self Strive
Make up your mind, Snail! You are half inside your house, And halfway out!
RICHARD WRIGHT

Half Halfway House Inside Make Mind Small
I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it
RICHARD WRIGHT

Day Forget Learn Leaving might Some South Understand
I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true […].
RICHARD WRIGHT

Emotionally Factually Knows Stories True
It made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Answer Drama Feeling Help Human Love Made Nobody Question Sense Sought Wonder
Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Afraid Bad Country Good Lonely Self Term White
If you’ve a notion of what man’s heart is, wouldn’t you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man’s frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself?
RICHARD WRIGHT

Attempt Civilization Earth Effort Frantic Frightened Notion Say
And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Blind Force Know Pawn Play Powerless Social

In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness.

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In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness.

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