"Queen Cotton"

"From now on the laws of Queen Cotton rule our lives. (Contrary to popular assumption, cotton is a queen, not a king. Kings are dictatorial; cotton is not only dictatorial but self-destructive, an impervious woman in the throes of constant childbirth, a woman who is driven by her greedy passion to bear endless bales of cotton, though she well knows that she will die if she continues to give birth to her fleecy children!) If we black folk had only to work to feed the Lords of the Land, to supply delicacies for their tables- as did the slaves of old for their masters- our degradation upon the plantations would not have been the harshest form of human servitude the world has ever known. But we had to raise cotton to clothe the world; cotton meant money, and money meant power and authority and prestige. To plant vegetables for our tables was often forbidden, for raising a garden narrowed the area to be planted in cotton. The world demanded cotton, and the Lords of the Land ordered more acres to be planted- planted right up to our doorsteps! - and the ritual of Queen Cotton became brutal and bloody" (38).

      I really enjoy Wright's style of writing here. It comes across as poetic and powerful more than just historical. I have always been accustomed to hearing the term "King Cotton" in history and have never really realized that his description of it makes so much more sense. His comparing of the cotton to a "self-destructive", dictatorial woman in constant childbirth really adds to one's understanding of just how harsh it was in those times; there really was no end to it. And even worst, everything revolved around cotton. It was central to the Bosses of the Buildings "owners of the industry", the Lords of the Land, and especially the slaves. It was all a ritual. Buried underneath the never ending cotton was their liberation- unreachable, to say the least.  The writing style used in this passage, and throughout the work, captures the reader like no other history book may have done before. Wright's use of "us" to describe the chain of events that went on gives us a voice that we can rely on to really feel what went on in those plantations and on those ships. I really can't say much more other than the fact that I really enjoy his powerful imagery and use of ideas such as in the line "we had to raise cotton to cloth the world". "Queen Cotton" will now forever replace what I once thought was King.

How does Wright's writing style move you and encourage you to experience historical events, perhaps already known, differently than any other history book you may have come across before?