It wasn't enough that white Southerners killed, maimed, and tortured African Americans; they tried to paralyze them psychologically. The violence employed against African Americans was not committed in private where there would be no witnesses. Racial violence was performed as a kind of spectator sport for the entertainment of white people and to make sure that all African Americans understood what was at stake for any person of color who stepped outside the confines of the roles they were allowed, i.e. that person's life. Many of the most formative events in Richard Wright's life regarding racial consciousness, such as those mentioned above, furthered the goals of white terrorists. A lynching was not simply retaliation for a perceived slight; the implicit purpose of the public lynching was to warn others who had the potential to similarly transgress. In the case of Richard Wright, if such terrorism did not deter him from pursuing his full freedom, then there were others for whom it did. However, white terrorism had another, even more insidious aspect