Richard Wright
Literary Distinctions through Ineradicable Scars
His racial status, his poverty, the disruption of his family, and his faulty education allowed Richard Wright to grow into a novelist astonishingly different than other major American writers. Richard Wright was born on a Rucker plantation in Adams County, Mississippi. He was born on September 4, 1908 to Ella Wilson, a schoolteacher and Nathaniel Wright, a sharecropper. When Wright was about six years old, his father abandoned Ella and his two sons in a penniless condition to run off with another woman. This left Wright’s mother the difficult task of supporting herself and her children on her own, but left Wright with a humiliating kind of loss (Duffus).
Soon after his father left, Wright and his mother moved to Memphis, Tennessee. His mother was forced to work as a cook in order to support the family; and during this period, Wright temporarily stayed in an orphanage. Wright’s mother became ill while living in Memphis, so the family moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and lived with Ella’s mother. His grandmother was a Seventh Day Adventist so she enrolled him in a Seventh Day Adventist school at the age of twelve. Wright went to a local public high school for a few years, but did not receive a higher-level education (Duffus).
In 1925, he moved back to Memphis, Tennessee. He worked at menial jobs such as, carrying lunches for railroad workers, carrying firewood and trays for small cafes, delivering clothes for a pressing shop, sweeping floors, selling newspapers, doing chores for white families, etc. (Kinnamon, 6) He moved to Chicago in 1927 after securing employment as a postal clerk, he read other writers and studied their styles during his time off. Later in 1937, Wright moved to New York, where he began ties with Communist Party members there after getting established. He worked on the WPA Writers’ Project, and wrote the book’s essay on Harlem. Wright became the Harlem editor of the Daily Worker. Wright is
His racial status, his poverty, the disruption of his family, and his faulty education allowed Richard Wright to grow into a novelist astonishingly different than other major American writers. Richard Wright was born on a Rucker plantation in Adams County, Mississippi. He was born on September 4, 1908 to Ella Wilson, a schoolteacher and Nathaniel Wright, a sharecropper. When Wright was about six years old, his father abandoned Ella and his two sons in a penniless condition to run off with another woman. This left Wright’s mother the difficult task of supporting herself and her children on her own, but left Wright with a humiliating kind of loss (Duffus).
Soon after his father left, Wright and his mother moved to Memphis, Tennessee. His mother was forced to work as a cook in order to support the family; and during this period, Wright temporarily stayed in an orphanage. Wright’s mother became ill while living in Memphis, so the family moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and lived with Ella’s mother. His grandmother was a Seventh Day Adventist so she enrolled him in a Seventh Day Adventist school at the age of twelve. Wright went to a local public high school for a few years, but did not receive a higher-level education (Duffus).
In 1925, he moved back to Memphis, Tennessee. He worked at menial jobs such as, carrying lunches for railroad workers, carrying firewood and trays for small cafes, delivering clothes for a pressing shop, sweeping floors, selling newspapers, doing chores for white families, etc. (Kinnamon, 6) He moved to Chicago in 1927 after securing employment as a postal clerk, he read other writers and studied their styles during his time off. Later in 1937, Wright moved to New York, where he began ties with Communist Party members there after getting established. He worked on the WPA Writers’ Project, and wrote the book’s essay on Harlem. Wright became the Harlem editor of the Daily Worker. Wright is