In the following essay excerpt, Williams explores how Wright uses the "mammy" character of Aunt Sue to represent the capability of black women to achieve social change.

"Bright and Morning Star" is one of the most deft and moving renderings of a black woman's experience in the canon of American literature. Writing while he was still a staunch believer in communism as the hope of the world's oppressed. Wright was able to achieve in this story a synthesis of ideology and literary expression that he was only occasionally able to equal in later, longer works. The mute Lulu, the childish wanton Sarah in "Long Black Song," May, the stereotyped and scary wife of the hero in "Fire and Cloud": these characterizations of black women are somewhat redeemed in the character of Aunt Sue. Yet, paradoxically, Wright's loving characterization also reinforces the image of the black woman as...