Richard Wright (1908 - 1960) was an African American writer known for Native Son, Black Boy, Uncle Tom's Children, and more. His literature dealt with racial themes, including discrimination and violence.
This program presents a biography of Richard Wright, author of Black Boy and Native Son, taking viewers from his impoverished childhood to his involvement in Chicago’s Black Renaissance, the Communist Party, and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy era, to his exile and death in Paris. Underwritten by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the film skillfully intercuts dramatic excerpts from Wright’s work with historical footage and the recollections of friends, associates, and luminaries that include Ralph Ellison, Margaret Walker, and Wright’s daughter, Julia. (86 minutes)
Source: Films on Demand
NATIVE SON, AUTHOR & ACTIVIST. RICHARD WRIGHT was an African-American author of novels, short stories and non-fiction that dealt with powerful themes and controversial topics. Much of his works concerned racial themes that helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century. Born on a plantation in Mississippi, Wright was a descendent of the first slaves who arrived in Jamestown Massachusetts. This program follows his arduous path from sharecropper to literary giant. Through authors like H.L. Menken, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, he discovered that literature could be used as a catalyst for social change. In 1937 Wright moved to New York and his work began to garner national attention for it's political and social commentary. Much of Wright's writing focused on the African American community and experience; his novel Native Son won him a Guggenheim Fellowship and was adapted to the Broadway stage with Orson Welles directing in 1941. In 1946, Wright was fed up with America's treatment of its black citizens and became an expatriate in Paris, France where he joined a circle that included famous Existentialists Jean-Paul Sarte and Albert Camus. Though he quit his formal education at only 15 years old, Richard Wright was a major influence on world literature & politics, and brought the black experience to the forefront of social discourse.
Source: Kanopy