Wright, Racism, and Violence

Richard Wright’s short story “Down By the Riverside” is a fiery critique of racial segregation in the Jim Crow south. Through the usage of black naturalism, Wright paints a rather negative picture of black identity in the south, yet he offers a radical solution to the question of black equality in the form of violence. Wright believed that African American writers historically failed to properly represent their race and instead pandered to white people, which led him to develop a drastically different approach towards his writing of black equality. While the story was published in the late 1930’s, making it technically not a work of the Civil Rights movement, the story was clearly a precursor to many of the different forms of literary protest that would emerge as a result of the Civil Rights movement. His new ideas helped bring forth a new wave of energy and life for the struggle of equal rights, a movement that was led by African Americans for African Americans, not white people.

One of the most striking passages from the short story which Wright uses to highlight the horrors of racial segregation in the South is when Mann is confronted by Mr. Heartfield for stealing his boat. Not only does the scene show the sheer cruelty towards Mann from the Hartfields, but we can also see hints of what Wright thinks African Americans should do for a new form of the movement for equal rights. At first, Mann doesn’t realize that he is at the Hartfield house and he attempts to get his wife into the house, hoping that the white people in the house feel sympathy towards him. But the only response he gets is gunshots, as the Hartfields  quickly realize that he stole their boat and their focus shifts to getting back their stolen boat. Mann had no other choice left, and he “raised his gun. The flare flickered to and fro. His throat tightened and he aimed. Then the flare hovers some five feet from him. He fired, twice. The white man fell backwards on the steps and slipped with an abrupt splash into the water” (Wright, 69). In this passage, Wright is arguing that African Americans need to take a more confrontational approach in their march towards equal rights, even if it involves violent tactics. The white people are shown to be violent, and so Wright believes that violence is thus an appropriate response. Although, as we see later on in this story, this killing proved to be Mann’s downfall, yet he had no real alternative in this scenario. The system is rigged against him, and even his small victories are only temporary.

In addition, Richard Wright utilizes the setting of the story, the Mississippi Flood, to emphasize the problem of racial segregation for African Americans in the South. Wright uses the flood as a metaphor for the overwhelming and suffocating presence of white people in the lives of African Americans, and we can see this in the beginning of the story when Mann is contemplating on the flood. Mann observes his situation as follows:

He looked out; his house was about twelve feet above the water. And water was everywhere. Yellow water. Swirling water. Droning water. For four long days and nights it had been there, flowing past. For a moment he had the illusion that that water had always been there, and would always be there. Yes, it seemed that the water had always been there and this was just the first time he had noticed it. Mabbe somebody jus dropped them houses n tree down inter tha watah . . . He felt giddy and a nervous shudder went through him (56).

Mann feels as if the water has always been there, its presence overpowering and taking over his mind. This is like the white people in the South who engineered the system such that African Americans like Mann would feel constantly under pressure, and Wright is using this to show how difficult it is for African Americans to live in such a situation. He encourages violence to be used as a tool to end this system because it’s the only way the white people will actually pay attention to what their demands are.

While Wright does offer solutions for African Americans, his depiction of their current status in the South is bleak, and this is clear in the concluding passages of the story. Mann is found guilty in Mr. Hartfield’s assasination, leading him to be hunted down and ultimately killed. Wright is showing that even though Mann was able to take control of his own fate during the moment he killed Mr. Hartfield, this was really an illusion and in the end the white people were able to reassert their power on Mann. So to Wright, the system in the South is so oppressive that a large movement is needed to bring forth any meaningful change. Isolated moments of rebellion cannot work on their own, like in the case of Mann. Wright is really one of the forerunners of the Civil Rights Movement, and “Down By the Riverside” presents African Americans with their harsh reality and the difficult steps that they will have to take in their fight for equal rights.