Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

Wright, Richard (1908–1960)

Wright rose to fame as an African American poet and author who wrote about race relations throughout the United States. He grew up in Mississippi and only received a 9th grade education. He read American literature voraciously, ultimately joining the Federal Writers’ Project. After moving to New York, he published Uncle Tom’s Children, four stories that earned him a 1939 Guggenheim Fellowship. Native Son (1940) topped best-seller lists, and in 1945 published his most famous novel, Black Boy , an autobiographical work that detailed racial violence in the South. He moved to Paris in 1946 and continued to publish works on race and violence, including nonfiction Black Power (1954) and The Long Dream (1958).