All across America, the saying, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me" can be heard amongst the school children. In Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy, readers were able to understand how erroneous the maxim is. Hurtful words and comments can scar a person's soul for the rest of their life. Even in present day, "colored" people are abused and taunted by words of hate. Unquestionably, these people are scarred for life. On the other hand, words also have a beneficial power. Martin Luther King Jr. used his power of speech valuably and was able to significantly help minorities of race move towards a brighter future. Wright portrays how powerful words are and benefits and disadvantages words have given him. Such incidents are when Richard curses his grandmother in the bathtub, when he distributes and sells the Ku Klux Klan supported newspapers, and his encounter with H.L. Mencken.
Richard's first realization of the power of words resulted in a beating that nearly took his life. While being scrubbed by Granny, Richard says, ""When you get through, kiss back there," I said, the words rolling softly but unpremeditatedly" (41). Richard hides from his family, confused at what he has done wrong, under a bed and eventually gets one of the worst beatings of his life. Richard learns from this experience and says, "The tremendous upheaval that my words had caused made me know that there lay back of them much more than I could figure out, and I resolved that in the future I would learn the meaning of why they had beat and denounced me" (45). Even though Richard is still a young boy, he learns to carefully watch his words and be cautious at all times.
When Richard sells the Ku Klux Klan supported newspapers, he does not realize the content of the newspapers, until a man points it out. Richard is so shocked that he had been selling such anti-Negro papers; he becomes conscious of the hatred in words being disseminated all throughout America, even in the Northern states.