Black Boy: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

In 1927, Richard takes the train north to Chicago with his Aunt Maggie. He remarks on the “unreal” quality of Chicago, full of dirt, smoke, and heavy industry. He is surprised, too, that the train station is not segregated, as Southern stations are. Richard begins to understand that he won’t feel in Chicago the same racial anxiety he felt in the South, but he imagines this will be replaced by the daily demands of a giant city, where people appear to worry only about their own survival. Richard and Aunt Maggie sit next to a white man on the streetcar to their Aunt Cleo’s apartment, where they will be staying. Richard is amazed that the white man has no problem sitting near a black man.

After a restless night at Aunt Cleo’s, Richard takes the streetcar south to a white neighborhood to look for work. He stops at a deli run by Jewish merchants, the Hoffmans, and Mr. Hoffman offers him a job immediately as a messenger and all-around helper. Richard is embarrassed that he can barely understand the Hoffmans’ English, as they speak with an Eastern European accent. He worries that the Hoffmans and others in their neighborhood secretly believe him to be ignorant because he is black.

In a commentary on these memories, Wright realizes that his younger self was mistaken about race relations in Chicago. The Hoffmans really were trying to help him, and they did not condescend to him. They also didn’t keep the same strict racial hierarchy in their neighborhood that American-born whites kept in the South. Wright wonders if those hierarchies aren’t somehow soothing, even to the blacks they subjugate, but he also cannot forgive Southern black workers who concede to the cruel demands of their white bosses.

Richard finds out that the Postal Service examination is to be held on a Monday, and he decides to take it. He’s exhausted from work at the Hoffmans, and fears that, if he tells them about the test, they’ll think he’s ungrateful for his job at the deli. In the South, Richard remarks to himself, a boss might have become angry at the thought that a black worker was trying to leave a menial job and improve his career. Richard decides to skip work for the three days to rest for and take the exam. Because he is afraid of the Hoffmans’ imagined anger, he tells them nothing about his absence.

The day after the test, Richard returns to work, where he’s greeted by Mr. Hoffman. Richard says that his mother died in Memphis and he had to return for her funeral. Mr. Hoffman understands that Richard is being untruthful, and asks him why. Instead of admitting his falsehood, Richard continues in it, saying his aunt lent him money for the trip. Richard believes it would be worse to admit to taking the exam than to tell an obvious lie to his boss. Mr. Hoffman replies to Richard that he knows he’s lying, but that it’s all right, and Richard can continue working at the deli. Richard, however, is ashamed of his actions, and confused that the Hoffmans didn’t fire him, either for his absence or his lack of honesty. Richard quits the next weekend without telling the Hoffmans that he’s leaving.

Richard next finds work washing dishes on the North Side. He is the only black worker at the diner, where the waitresses are white women from the neighborhood, and the cook, Tillie, is from Finland. Richard is surprised that the waitresses are untroubled by his blackness: they ask him for favors, talk honestly to him about their lives, and aren’t afraid to work in close quarters near him. Wright tells the reader that he is amazed by the shallowness of these waitresses’ existences. They seem to demand very little from life. He says that black experience is “truer and deeper,” because black people in America are forced every day to confront their position in society. But he is also in awe of the waitresses’ serene, uncomplicated attitudes.

In another commentary, Wright explains his views on white and black experience in America. Because American culture is consumer-driven, and because whites are socially dominant, white culture and consumer culture in the US become unified. White culture excludes black culture, as it has since the beginning of American democracy. Thus African Americans not only lack social equality with whites—they also find themselves outside the consumer utopia white culture has created. Returning to 1927, Richard describes the surprise of the “boss lady” at the diner when she realizes that Richard reads The American Mercury, H. L. Mencken’s magazine. No one else on the staff concerns themselves with that kind of high culture.

Richard realizes that Tillie has been spitting in the soup she makes. He tells a recently-hired black waitress, but they are afraid to inform the boss. Eventually, the black waitress does tell the boss, and Richard confirms the story. The boss is skeptical until she spies on Tillie as she spits; the boss fires Tillie at once, and Richard recalls the times he has been fired for offenses far less unsavory than Tillie’s.

A temporary position opens up at the Post Office, and Richard is called to take it. He quits at the diner, relieved to have a white-collar job. The new role pays him 70 cents a day, enough finally to eat three regular meals, but the job also has a weight requirement of 125 pounds, and Richard is 15 pounds short. Though the irony is not lost on him, his previous periods of hunger, brought on by low wages, are now coming back to haunt him at the first job that pays him a reasonable wage. He tries all summer to eat substantial meals to bring his weight up, which would allow him to keep the job.

During this time, Richard moves with his Aunt Maggie out of Aunt Cleo’s apartment. Richard’s mother and brother also move in, and they live in close quarters together. Richard spends much of his free time reading (Gertrude Stein and Dostoevsky especially), and he practices his own writing, despite his family’s disapproval of his constant study. In September, however, he falls short of 125 pounds and is fired from the Post Office. He returns to the diner and promises himself he’ll eat as much as he can, to secure another postal job when it becomes available in the spring.

Until then, Richard busies himself at the diner. He reads Proust and continues his project of intellectual betterment, though it’s difficult to maintain his schedule, continue his broad reading, and deal with his family, who are confused by his dedication to books. Although he is lonely, Richard finds hope in the texts he’s reading. He vows to continue on his path toward a literary career.