And in the end

“Black Boy” ends with Wright realizing that the world is swollen with unhappiness, its inhabitants weighted down by hatred, stifled feelings, and despair. He decides that both blacks and whites are unhappy, neither the minority nor the majority feeling any sense of contentment. After being thrown out from the May Day march, Wright feels completely alone and senses that only words can connect him with what exists of humanity. He decides he must “hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, send other words to…create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all… (384)” He also contemplates the worth of life in America. He writes, “What had I got out of living in the South? What had I got out of living in America?...All my life I had been full of a hunger for a new way to live… (383)” Although not detailed in the book, Wright eventually moves to France, fleeing hunger and hardships. His thoughts in these last pages of the book give some explanation as to why he does this.
Wright asserts that if America doesn’t “find its way to a human path (383),” then “all of us…are going down the same drain… (383)” I think America is, and was, stronger than Wright thought. There are always good people, and there is always some hope, although sometimes this hope must be dusted off to look appealing. Since Wright’s time, I think America has found its “human path.” Racism still exists in America, but Americans mostly enjoy equal rights. America’s commander-in-chief is a black man. Happiness certainly doesn’t glow from mountaintop to mountaintop, and it never will, but there is good to be seen and experienced.