Black Boy and Mama’s Girl Comparison and Contrast Essay

Mama’s Girl by Veronica Chambers and Black Boy by Richard Wright are autobiographies about two people growing up black in America. Richard Wright, born in 1908 near Roxie, Mississippi, became to be one of the most influential black writers in America and his work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century. Veronica Chambers, author of Mama’s Girl, has spent most of her career being an editor for various papers and magazines and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Both books describe how it is like to grow up being discriminated against and the trials that one goes through being a black American. Both Black Boy and Mama’s Girl have
Where racial tensions in the 1970’s-1980’s were mainly related to small issues such as gang fights, lower class living standards, and low income, bad employment. The family life of Wright in Black Boy and the family life of Chambers in Mama’s Girl is quite similar considering the different time periods and locations. Both grow up with an abusive father that leaves the family for another woman, both go through hardships living with a single mother, and both are moved around due to their mother’s needs. Wright grows up as a curious child living in a household of strict, religious women and violent, irresponsible men. His father deserted the family, and he was shuffled back and forth due to his mothers bad employment and inability to support her children on her own. He was shuffled between his sick mother, his fanatically religious grandmother and various aunts and uncles while his mother was sick. Chambers also grows up as a child living in a house of a dominant female figure and a violent, irresponsible father. Her father deserted the family like Wright, and her mother had to work to support the family. She also had to move around a lot due to her mother’s needs, such as not having a steady job and her mother falling in love. Both Black Boy and Mama’s Girl are full of hardships and trials and they are in fact a main theme in both books. Richard goes through many hardships as a child and as an adult having to