An effective way of writing is to include depictions of events from your past. Richard Wright did exactly this. Both his art and his life have a sad and angry edge.
Richard Wright lived a life full of fear. Families teach their children fear because they want them to survive. There is a risk that if a black child doesn't fear whites, he will behave in a way that causes him harm.
Wright was born on a plantation in Mississippi in 1908. This was a time and place where Jim Crow was a part of American culture. In 1914, many sharecroppers including the Wright family were forced to leave the plantations, due to the start of World War I. The war reduced the demand for cotton in Europe. For a time, Wright's mother placed her two children in an orphanage so that they would have food. Richard was 7, but not in school, and found his life so difficult that he ran away from home several times. The family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where jobs were scarce, and disease was everywhere in the black neighborhoods. It was during this time that his father, an Illiterate sharecropper, left the family for another woman, his mother had a stroke, and his uncle was murdered.
The family moved to Jackson, Mississippi to live with Richard's grandmother. It was around this time that Wright started to write in class. Richard wanted to go to public school, but his grandmother, a strict disciplinarian, forced him to go to a Christian based school. Wright learned that imagination is a good way to pass the monotonous hours of school. Eventually, he discovered his talent as a writer after writing a story about voodoo. At 15, he dropped out of school, in order to work. Wright was inspired by the writing of H. L. Mencken. He desired to read more, and had to forge a note in order to gain access to the "whites only" library. Later, he moved to Chicago, because he couldn't be a successful writer with all of the racism in the South. Just after arriving, his hopes were nearly crushed by the start of the Great Depression. In 1934, Richard joined the Communist Party and wrote his criticisms of America. Richard published many articles, and soon became known as the best black writer in America. When he was writing his autobiography, he wasn't only telling the story of his life, but also telling the miserable story that every black man had to suffer.
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