Choosing your own path

    As a refresher, since everyone has read the text already, "Down By the Riverside" follows Mann, a black man, as he navigates through the flooding of the Mississippi river. Mann is forced to use a stolen boat in order to take his pregnant wife to the hospital. On the way, the owner of the boat, a white man, tires to shoot Mann, but is shot and killed in self-defense. At the hospital though, the doctors have to break the unfortunate news that his wife is dead. Shortly after, Mann is drafted by soldiers to help rescue people stranded by the flood. In a twisted turn of events, he is sent to rescue the family of the stolen boat, who recognize him. Although he first tries to pretend they are not home, he also considers killing them with his axe, he decides against it as the house suddenly shifts around him. Once the boat arrives to safety, the white family quickly alerts the authorities of Mann's crime, and he is apprehended. He breaks free and attempts to run away, but is shot to death. In the story and as we discussed in class, there is a theme of realism, where Mann chooses to take his death into his own hands. In my interpretation, this idea of realism is representative of the civil rights movement as a whole, and how it aimed to push against the naturalist system of white supremacy.

    In the beginning of the story, the narrator empathizes with Mann: "it just did not seem fair that one man should be hit so hard and on so many sides at once." As a black man in the south, he had everything against him. On top of poverty and the flooding, is wife is sick and they have no way to leave the house. Yet, Mann has no choice but to deal with his situation; the help will never come to him. Rather, he has to seek out the opportunities on his own: a metaphor for the disparities of society before the civil rights movement.

    At the end of the story, when Mann is confronted by the white soldiers after saving the Heartfield family, the story reveals the commonplace discrimination that the civil rights movement would challenge. Although it is true that Mann kills the father, the reaction by the white soldiers is clearly indicative of the social views of the time. The soldiers immediately take the side of the Heartfield family, quickly capturing Mann and interrogating and beating him. This exchange highlights the total lack of legal due process for African Americans in the South. In this passage, we can see how Mann’s survival and his reasons for his actions are irrelevant to the white society, highlighting an cause of the civil rights movement.

    Similarly, as Mann learns about the death of his wife and fetus, he is not given time to grieve or comfort his family. Instead, he is immediately conscripted into helping save other (generally white) people. This passage highlights the lack of basic respect and dignity given to the Black Americans at the time. While the Civil Rights Movement fought for the right to be treated with dignity, this scene shows the reality where a Black man's interests and grievances are ignored to favor the white population. In response to Mann telling the captain his wife is dead, the captain simply retorts "Shucks n*****r! You ought to be glad youre not dead in a flood like this," highlighting the lack of compassion Wright wanted to show.

   Ultimately, Wright doesn't offer a happy resolution because, in the world Mann lived in, there was not one. The initial naturalism of the story makes his death feel like an inevitable ending, but it is the final moment of realism that shows a glimmer of hope. It is the ending we all saw, but it highlights the exact reason for the Civil Rights Movement.