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Essay on Richard Wright

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Richard Wright

"Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man. I asked myself if these human qualities were not fostered, won, struggled and suffered for, preserved in ritual from one generation to another." This passage written in Black Boy, the autobiography of Richard Wright shows the disadvantages of Black people in the 1930's. A man of many words, Richard Wrights is the father of the modern …show more content…

One book of particular interest to Richard was H.L. Menken's Book of Prefaces, it was a basis to a majority of his own writings. Richard traveled around the country picking up odd jobs but these jobs didn't meet his standards, they didn't exercise his abilities. Hence Richard decided to enter the political arena. After being refused from both the Democratic and Republican parties.....Richard entered the Communist party after hearing of there efforts to promote equality among races.

While in the Communist Party, Richard's writings began to have a direct influence on many people. He was a leading contributor to the magazine and newspapers -"Daily Worker" and "New Masses" which held very controversial beliefs for the time. His novels, Uncle Tom's Children (1938) and Native Son (1940) were written while he was in the party. Richard was one of a few black men in the Communist Party and it was because of him that many black American's began to look to the Communist Party. Because of a lack of results and his outspoken militancy, Wright broke away from the party in 1944. The essay, "The God that Failed", gives an oversight to why Richard disagreed with the Communist party. According to the Communist Party, Richard was not writing about what they wanted such as ways to come together and fight against others,he was reflecting the life of the black American and the Communists found this to have little importance to what they were trying to portray.

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