The Civil Rights Movement and Down By the Riverside by Connor G
One big piece of the story Down by the Riverside by Richard Wright was the idea of the protest novel. His story highlights the struggles that black people had to endure in the post-slavery south, in the midst of Jim Crow laws. As mentioned above, this writing is a protest novel, and clearly so with all the tragedy and misfortune that befalls the main character, Mann, as a result of said Jim Crow laws. While the whole story could be considered as a novel written to oppose the prevalent racial segregation in the south, many passages offer a summary of the attitudes of Black Americans at the time. One passage that speaks to the movement for equal rights in Down by the Riverside is when Mann is forced to work the levee during the flood, even after his wife was pronounced dead. “Well, you don't have to go to the hills. Your folks'll go on to the hills and you can stay here and help on the levee…” Capm, please! Ahm tired!” “This is martial law,” said the colonel, turning to ...