A Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of Native Son by Richard Wright
Each year Roger Williams University celebrates a significant anniversary of the publication of a great work of literature, starting in 2001 with the 150th anniversary of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and continuing in 2015 with the 75th anniversary of Richard Wright’s Native Son. When Native Son was published in 1940 it was one of the first major novels about African-Americans written by an African- American. This protest novel was an immediate bestseller and chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Still, it was a controversial work banned by many public high schools and libraries throughout the United States. The novel was adapted for the stage several times with the initial production directed by Orson Welles on Broadway.
When Native Son was selected in 2014 the Birss Committee could not have predicted how reflective it would be of the current explosion of racial tension within our society. This tragic novel remains a moving and accurate testimony of the plight of the African-American man in the United States. While strides toward equality have been made since the 1930s, there remains a significant socio-economic divide between white and black America. Racial profiling and unfair treatment of African-Americans still occurs within the criminal justice system.
Bigger Thomas, the protagonist in Native Son, commits two murders and is captured, imprisoned, tried and sentenced to death. The irony of the story is that while it unfolds, despite the horror of the crimes committed, the reader comes to understand the forces of society that fuel the anger causing Bigger to commit these murders. In the end one wonders who is really at fault -- Bigger Thomas or American society.
Today one wonders who is really at fault in two recent cases involving the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City -- the suspects or the police officers. In the face of these dilemmas and the current racial tension in our society, Richard Wright’s Native Son continues to tell us what it is like to grow up black, poor and angry in America. The fact that this story remains so relevant is an indication of how far we still have to go to achieve racial equality in America.
• Book Discussion sponsored by the University Honors Program and the RWU Library o Time: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 7:00pm o Place: Mary Tefft White Cultural Center, RWU Library • A Panel Discussion will be moderated by Professor James Tackach o Time: Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 5:00pm o Place: Mary Tefft White Cultural Center, RWU Library •
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Bio
Richard Nathaniel Wright’s literary reputation has been largely determined by the political and racial concerns of his fiction. From the time he published Native Son until his death, he was viewed primarily as the literary spokesman for black radicalism. It has only been since the 1970’s that critics have begun to examine his writing in a broader perspective. Born on September 4, 1908, to Ella and Nathan Wright on a farm near Natchez, Mississippi, Richard had a difficult childhood of economic deprivation, familial disruption, and frequent relocations. The family was living in Memphis when his father abandoned them in 1914. His mother’s poverty and increasing illness made it necessary to rely on relatives and to move frequently. For a short time, Wright and his younger brother were placed in an orphanage. For the remainder of his youth, the family traveled between Elaine, Arkansas; West Helena, Arkansas; Greenwood, Mississippi; and Jackson, Mississippi.
Wright received the bulk of his formal education at Smith-Robinson High School in Jackson, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1925. While in high school, he wrote “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half Acre,” a story that was published in the Southern Register, a local black newspaper. After graduation, he worked in Memphis and began an intensive period of reading H. L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, and Theodore Dreiser. In 1927 he traveled to Chicago. There he worked at a variety of jobs, but in 1931 he was forced to go on relief. He continued writing and sold the story “Superstition” to Abbott’s Monthly Magazine. He subsequently found work at Michael Reese Hospital, the South Side Boys’ Club, and the Illinois Federal Writers’ Project. In 1932 he began attending meetings of the John Reed Club, a communist literary society. That connection led him to publish numerous crudely didactic poems in leftist journals. In 1933 Wright officially joined the Communist Party. It was not long, though, before the cynicism of the communist movement, particularly its decision to eliminate the literary aspects of the John Reed Club, angered Wright.
Despite his arguments with the Communist Party in Chicago, Wright was named Harlem editor of the Daily Worker and moved to New York in 1937. During his last two years in Chicago, he had begun to publish the stories that first brought him national attention. His first novel, which was posthumously published as Lawd Today, was rejected, but winning first prize in Story magazine’s fiction contest made it easier for him to find a publisher for Uncle Tom’s Children. Uncle Tom’s Children, in turn, helped Wright get a Guggenheim Fellowship. With this financial support, he was able to finish Native Son, and that sensational novel became the first best-seller written by a black author. In Native Son, Wright consciously eliminated the sentimentality that had made Uncle Tom’s Children too easy for liberal white readers. In Bigger Thomas, he created one of the least attractive protagonists in American literature, an uncompromising portrait of black anger and frustration.
Buoyed by the success of his novel, Wright entered an artistically active period during which he collaborated with Paul Green on a dramatic version of Native Son, collaborated with photographer Edwin Rosskam on Twelve Million Black Voices, a pictorial history of black Americans, and began work on another novel, the final section of which was published as “The Man Who Lived Underground.” He also worked on his autobiography, the first part of which was published in 1945 as Black Boy. Some critics consider this powerful retelling of his early years Wright’s best work. Disappointed by the continued racism of American society after World War II, Wright emigrated to France in 1947. The influence of Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialists is evident in The Outsider, which Wright published in 1953. During the 1950’s he published three books of political commentary based on his travels and lectured on contemporary issues. His last two novels, Savage Holiday and The Long Dream, were critical failures. He died of a heart attack in 1960, and unsubstantiated rumors that his death was directly or indirectly caused by agents of the United States government have become a persistent part of his legend.
Wright introduced white America to an assertive black literature and encouraged a generation of black authors that followed his lead. Native Son and several of his short stories are considered masterpieces of social realism, and Black Boy is one of the most influential American autobiographies. Critics have become more appreciative of Wright’s existential novel, The Outsider, but most agree that his most important work was behind him when he left the United States.
Essay by: Carl Brucker
Source:
Brucker, Carl. "Richard Wright." Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition (2003): 1-2.