Richard Wright

Richard Wright (1908-1960) was an author whose books and short stories were known for their power and the controversy they caused sometimes. His literature usually contained racial themes. Due to his father leaving Wright's family at a young age, and his mother's illness, Wright and his brother were moved around constantly in several towns in Arkansas and Mississippi. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Wright was allowed to stay with his grandmother until late 1925. Wright developed a permanent and uncompromising hostility towards religious situations due to his aunt and grandmother always forcing him to pray to God. At fifteen, Wright wrote his first story, entitled The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre and it was published in the local black newspaper. Wright was named class valedictorian but refused to recite a carefully written speech that would not offend the white school officials, and he finally convinced the black administrators to let him read what he wrote. In 1933, Wright joined a Communist party and was known as a revolutionary poet.

Wright's novel Native Son is about a troubled youth who realized his identity after attaining a job. The character kills a white women, runs from the police, rapes and kills his girlfriend, and is caught and tried. Wright does not apologize for the character's actions because he is sympathetic to the inevitability behind them.

This novel embodies the Civil Rights Movement because it focuses on the power of racial inequality and social injustices. It encourages racial equality because without it, it becomes impossible to determine where social expectations and conditioning ends and where free will begins.