Introduction & Overview of Bright and Morning Star by Richard Wright

Bright and Morning Star Introduction

When Richard Wright wrote "Bright and Morning Star," he was involved with the Communist Party. His first published stories (a category to which "Bright and Morning Star" belongs) centered on communist themes, such as organizing the working force and fighting for the rights of oppressed people. These first stories most often appeared in leftist periodicals.

At the time of publication of "Bright and Morning Star," Wright was living in New York and was working as the Harlem editor for the communist newspaper the Daily Worker. "Bright and Morning Star" was first published in 1938 in The Masses, a radical, socialist monthly journal, and was not collected in the original publication of Uncle Tom's Children. Rather, it was in 1940, when Uncle Tom's Children was reprinted and expanded, that "Bright and Morning Star" was included in this collection.

Besides being influenced by the philosophy of the Community Party, Wright...
(read more)