Acceptance statement for
the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award
Natchez Literary and Cinema
Celebration
February 26, 2011
BETWEEN RICHARD
WRIGHT AND ME
We
both spent our childhood and youth in Mississippi in the twentieth
century. Like many American males we
were sensitive to how we were socialized by the values and expectations of our
families. We were fully aware that law
and custom set boundaries for our growth, and we discovered fairly early the
peculiar feeling of accomplishment that came from defying limits. We were curious rebels, and the price we had
to pay for our lack of meekness shaped and left indelible marks on our
personalities.
Our
curiosity about the things of this world was notably increased by our uses of
literacy. We were avid readers, allowing
our imaginations to be much enlarged by words, language, and the lore one can
acquire from books and from oral transmission.
We were different from our peers.
We were existential before
either of us could pronounce or define that word. Our differentness was at once a blessing and
a curse, a paradox within the matrix of Deep South society. We were blessed
with inner strength and will power, with knowing we had the option of refusing
to become who and what the less than generous world desired we should
become. Even if our bodies gave scant
evidence of disobedience, our minds delighted in transgressive explorations; we
entertained ideas that neither our immediate families nor our environments were
prepared to understand or condone. As we
grew into adolescence, our observations and reading prepared us to become
exceptionally critical of injustice. And
we discovered that the forms of language that so fascinated us could be
instruments for effecting change.
Literature and our experiences taught us that we did not have to be
passive. We had agency; it was our
entitlement under natural law to deny the possibility of our being wretched and
tragic victims.
Obviously,
I have sketched a few parallels between the life experiences that Richard
Wright described vividly in his classic autobiography Black Boy and my memories
of the trajectory of my own life. The
epiphany I had upon reading Black Boy in my youth created a most powerful
affinity between Richard Wright and me.
It also created the recognition that we shared, despite the thirty-five
years that separated us, similar values and tough-minded perspectives about the
dynamics of good and evil that impact the lives of human beings. Although our paths in adulthood took quite
different directions ---Wright used his talents to establish himself as a
writer of international importance, and I used my talents to forge a career in
American higher education, we both dedicated our lives to trying in good faith
to speak truth about our world, to find receptive ears for our words, and to
shake people out of the dangerous habits of inattention and complacency. Richard Wright has indeed taught me through
the full range of his writings about my obligations to humanity.
Thus,
it is with profound humility that I accept the Richard Wright Literary
Excellence Award and express my gratitude to the Natchez Literary and Cinema
Celebration for deciding that I am worthy of such a distinguished honor. Of course, that gratitude includes thanks to
Carolyn Vance Smith for founding NLCC and to members of Wright’s family who
have embraced me with kindness. The
honor entails an obligation to think and write in ways that pay tribute to the
model of excellence that Richard Wright set for all of us and to continue my
commitment to ensuring that future generations of writers and thinkers never
forget how essentially valuable is Richard Wright’s legacy to the world.
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
