Uncle Tom's Children is a collection of novellas and the first book published by African-American author Richard Wright, who went on to write Native Son (1940), Black Boy (1945), and The Outsider (1953).

When it was first published in 1938, Uncle Tom's Children included only four novellas: "Big Boy Leaves Home," "Down by the Riverside," "Long Black Song," and "Fire and Cloud."

"The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" and "Bright and Morning Star," which are now the first and final pieces, respectively, were added when the book was republished in 1940.

[1] The book's title is derived from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, an anti-slavery novel published in 1852.

The essay begins with Wright's first encounter with racism as a child, when his attempt to play a war game with white children turns violent, and ends with a scolding from his mother, blaming him for the incident.

He describes his experiences with racism at his first job, at an optical company where his white coworkers increasingly bully and threaten him as punishment for wanting to learn skills that could allow him to advance, ultimately forcing him out.

Wright describes the continuation of his "Jim Crow education" as he moves from place to place, witnessing violence against a Black woman that police officers punish her for, facing attacks on his own body from white youths, and working as a bell-boy in a hotel where white men have exploitative sex with Black maids, but where sex with a white prostitute means castration or death for a Black man.

Wright's essay ends with a discussion of the complicated world view Black people must adopt in order to survive during Jim Crow, and asking the question "How do Negroes feel about the way they have to live?"

Once Big Boy arrives at home, he relays the story to his mother and father, who gather members of their community in an attempt to save their son.

Big Boy is sent off with some food to hide, lying in wait for an acquaintance of the family with a truck that will be able to take him away from the gathering mob.

Eventually, Bobo is captured by the mob, who tar and feather then burn and lynch him as Big Boy is forced to listen.

Soldiers take away Grannie and Peewee to safety in the hills, and Mann is conscripted to work on the failing levee.

Mann and a young black boy, Brinkley, are told to rescue a family at the edge of town, who turn out to be the Heartfields.

Knowing he's doomed and vowing to "die fo they kill [him]" Mann runs and the soldiers shoot him dead by the river's edge.

Sarah returns to Silas and tries to convince him to escape with her, but he relents that he can never be free in a white man's world despite all his effort.

Sarah takes Ruth back into the hills, where she watches a white mob descend on Silas, attempting to kill him first with bullets and then by lighting the house on fire.

First Taylor talks to the communists, who try to convince him to further commit to marching by adding his name to the pamphlets they distribute.

Once home, Taylor realizes that this beating directly connects him to the suffering of his people, and he tells his son that the march must go on.

He realizes that together, the pain of his being whipped and the strength of the assembled marchers, black and white people in one crowd, are a sign from God.

Though she is no longer a Christian, believing instead in a communist vision of the human struggle, Sue finds herself singing an old hymn as she waits.

"[2] Reflecting on Uncle Tom's Children in his essay "How 'Bigger' Was Born" (included in the 1993 restored edition of Native Son), Wright himself described the outcome of his work as unsatisfactory, also stating he did not wish to replicate the same mistakes in the future: "I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of Uncle Tom's Children.