The first bad encounter Richard has with whites is when he learns of his Uncle being shot to death by whites while working at his own store. .
Richard continues to grow, and as he grows he moves from house to house, at one point him and his brother are split up because his mother becomes very ill. As he is moved around his is moved from school to school were he learns to defend himself and gain respect from the children in school. The book has a big emphasis on Richard being hungry all the time. This leads us the reader through job after job that Richard goes through to get money. Every job that he encounters has white supervisors and bosses, which treat Richard badly, and Richards's attitude just gets him into more trouble because he does not yet know how to act towards white people because he has been shielded from them all his life. .
Richard finally saves up enough money to move out on his own. This is we first get a glimpse of how important reading and writing are to Richard. Richard learned to read and write when one of his jobs was selling news papers for a dime. When he moves out on his own, he has enough money to get a library card where he spends so much time reading from great authors. Richard spending all this time reading and writing isolates him even more from his family and from his black community as well, because at this time blacks were not supposed to be educated and even his own black community looks down on Richard for doing so. .
Richard wants to move up North away from the south, but is afraid to tell his white employers for fear of them killing him, or not letting him go. Richard always lives in fear of the white man, because of the experience that he has had. He is afraid to follow his dreams of moving up north so he can pursue his writing. He and his brother decide to save their money and move up north, but not let anyone know about it. Richard finally saves enough money, and hops on a train away from the south to go to Chicago.
