Writers Transcending All Odds

Cover of Native Son (Perennial Classics)

Wright’s father owned a piece of farm land which he received when be became a free man.  The mother eventually gave up teaching to help the father on the farm.  However, the family life became very unsettled when the mother eventually became seriously ill. She moved the family to live with another family, the Wilsons.  The father went with them and then decided to leave them to live with another woman, which put a strain on the finances.

After the separation from the father, the mother’s health worsened, forcing her to send Wright and his brother to live in an orphanage for a month and then with his aunt.  However, the family returned to live with the Wilson family, after his aunt’s boyfriend was murdered.

Wright’s mother’s health progressively worsened, forcing to leave school, at the age of ten, to help the family.  After the mother suffered a stroke, her mother came to take care of the family.  Not having enough money to pay the rent, forced them to move around frequently until they finally move in with Wright’s aunt and uncle, who are unsympathetic to Mrs. Wright’s condition.  She then suffers a cerebral blood clot, which left her crippled and a burden to the family, leaving them impoverished.

Wright finally returned to school, took up an interest in reading, and became a newsboy.  His interest in reading was without a doubt, the result of the influence of a family of teachers, his mother and aunt.  At this time, he becomes aware of the illiteracy and lack of education of the blacks in the rural south.  He continues reading books, novels, and magazines which others throw away, and taking odd jobs to help the family.

He wrote his first short story in the eighth grade while attending the Smith Robertson Junior High School in Jackson, Mississippi.  After having been voted as valedictorian of his ninth grade class, he again had to quit school to help support the family.  However, he continued reading magazines while working odd jobs as dishwasher and delivery boy.

At one point, the post office denied Wright a job with them because of chronic undernourishment.  He decided to eat heartily in order to gain weight, re-applied for the job and was hired.  It is amazing that Wright was able to become a famous writer in view of his unstable family life and his own problems with starvation. 

Although his family attended church regularly, Wright did not have much interest in religion and rebelled against the strict rules of their religious faith, which probably had an influence on his later interest in Communism.  He joined a communist writing club at age twenty-four and began to write revolutionary articles and poems.

He decided to become a communist to strengthen his position in the John Reed Club and because he was impressed that the communists opposed racial discrimination.  This was the beginning of his problems with the FBI and CIA who would, for the rest of his life, conduct undercover investigations on his activities.  Richard Wright eventually published numerous articles and poems before his most famous novel; Native Son was published in 1940.

In conclusion, Richard Wright’s life was remarkable in that he had to “roll with the punches” because of his family life, but the one stabilizing aspect was his interest in reading and writing which led to his fame as an acclaimed writer. 

If you, too, would like to write for money, click here.