Not only was he the father of the post-World War II black novel, he is also the main precursor of the black arts movement of the 1960s. Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin are but two of many outstanding black writers who profited from his influence."
Mississippi Beginnings
Born on September 4, 1908, near Natchez, Mississippi, Wright began life in one of the poorest and most racially divided parts of the United States. As Robert Felgar pointed out in his critical study Richard Wright, "the state was so racist, in fact, that accurate records of the birth of black children were not kept." His father, Nathan Wright, was an illiterate sharecropper while his mother, Ella, was a schoolteacher. Growing up poor, Wright was accustomed to both hunger and domestic violence. A large influence in his early youth was his maternal grandmother, at whose house he spent a considerable amount of time. A strict Seventh-Day Adventist, Wright's grandmother would have none of the usual boyhood activities such as baseball or marbles. Regular prayers, a strict diet, and quiet reflection on the Bible were the usual routine; however one day young Richard deviated from this in the wildest way.
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