Richard Wright (1908-1960) was an African American writer known primarily for his protest novels. However, Wright's legacy is much larger than simply protest. Born in Natchez, Mississippi, Wright's grandparents were slaves, and he grew up in poverty. He migrated North during the Great Depression and joined the Federal Writer's Project. He also joined the Communist Party between 1932 and 1944. It is during this period that he wrote three of his critically acclaimed novels, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1938), Native Son (1940), and Black Boy (1945). Wright also wrote several important nonfiction events on seminal world events and occurences including 12 Million Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States (1941); Black Power (1954); The Color Curtain , a report on the Bandung Conference in 1954 (1956); and Pagan Spain, an account of the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939 (1957).
NOTE--This informational blog is compiled by (with the exception of the introduction and photograph) and reprinted with permission from Abdul Akalimat, PhD
Bio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2xOJtw8N3M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wright_(author) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGJ13igfmGk
Blueprint for Negro Writing (1937) https://tinyurl.com/yckr4hun9
Interviews https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/C/Conversations-with-Richard-Wright
His poems https://www.poemhunter.com/richard-wright/
His life and time hhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEM933JHXUc
His leftism https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1944/08/richard-wright-communist/618821/
Black Boy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNgi9NVJ2z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbPyqloRdQY
Native Son https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMB-UC4a6SQ https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=438176510535030 Full Text: https://tinyurl.com/yynmse62 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbYQNsHPQjM
Blueprint for Negro Writing https://tinyurl.com/ne2hjrxw
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow https://tinyurl.com/w2fjpv8u
Panel at Schomburg https://www.c-span.org/video/?204687-1/richard-wright-100
Richard Wright Center at Jackson State University https://www.jsums.edu/wrightcenter/resources-for-faculty/
Archives http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.wright https://www.chipublib.org/fa-horace-r-cayton-papers/ https://libraries.olemiss.edu/cedar-archives/finding_aids/MUM00488.html
The Hurston/Wright Foundation https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Zora-Neale-Hurston-Richard-Wright-Foundation