1. Native Son
by Richard Wright

2. Richard Wright Born in 1908 (Mississippi)
Grew up on same plantation that his grandparents had worked on as chattel
Abandoned by illiterate father
Mother was in ill health
Separated from brother and spent time in “orphan home”
Escaped and lived with grandmother – hunger, beats him
Richard Wright

3. Jim Crow Laws 1890 – “Separate but Equal” – Plessy vs. Ferguson
Named after a show in which a white minstrel “blacked up”
Established after Civil War & the Reconstruction that followed
“Whites Only” “For Colored Passengers”
Left blacks without any qualifications
Menial/Underpaid labor
Libraries = Whites only
Merest whiff of intellectual curiousity invited ridicule from employers / bemusement from friends. Blacks holding books = game; encouraged veritable provocation to racist attack (Doctor, professor) – debasement.
Jim Crow Laws

4. Wright Moves to Chicago
Menial and underpaid labor
Moved north in 1927
No Jim Crow signs, but a clear color line
North is implicitly racist (De facto segregation)
Wright knew he had to speak meekly in monosyllables with deliberate stupidity
Racism was endemic to America overall
Acute overcrowding, disease, many other problems
Wright Moves to Chicago

5. Chicago Improvements Library access
Blacks pooled time, money, resources
Concentration of resources led to black-run organizations, new charities, newspapers, magazines, banks, sporting clubs
Chicago

6. Wright discovers Marxism
Became a member in 1934 – actively wrote to promote revolutionary feelings in Chicago’s working class
Explained systems and histories that generated terrible upbringings
Ghetto = capitalism’s offspring
Sign of its addiction to underpaid labor / dependence on inequality
Made Wright feel a sense of belonging
Mainly agreed with untenable cruelties of capitalism
Homogenized, deindividualized, controlled
Eventually separated because he was unsatisfied with their commitment to combating racism and inequality
Wright discovers Marxism

7. Richard Wright - Author
Exposed intellectual dishonesty of racism
Small acts of intimidation/discrimination secretly acknowledge potential for black equality
Wrote Twelve Million Black Voices (1941),
Black Boy (1945)
Uncle Tom’s Children (1938)
Wealthiest black author of his time
Richard Wright - Author

8. What are we reading? Main character: Bigger (Antihero)
POV: Third person limited
Setting: Chicago – 1930s
Plot: A black man is justly accused of murder, but his actions are so shaped by cultural, social, and economic forces that his actions were out of his control.
Published: 1940 (Modernist)
What are we reading?

9. Criticisms Feminist Readings
No strong female characters
Strips women of wit and courage and replaces it with violence
Rape, dismemberment, death
Violence perpetrates on female body
“Female characters are flat, one-dimensional characters, portrayed primarily in terms of their relationships to the male characters…”
Criticisms

10. Native Son Can literature fight injustice? Social commentary on
“guilt-hate-fear complex” – Robert Guthrie
Whites = unaware of deep-seated racial prejudices
Blacks = unable to express themselves with words/economical power use physical power in an effort to avoid confronting fear that leads to violence
Both groups see each other as frightening and untrustworthy
Native Son

11. Conversations Go to http://today.io/152g4
Use your first name and last initial
Ex: Sarah C
Conversations

12. Unwanted Common Black Culture
“the Negro people did not ask for [their cultural nationalism], and deep down, though they express themselves through their institutions and adhere to this special way of life, they do not want it now. This special existence was forced upon them from without by lynch rope, bayonet and mob rule.” Wright believed cultural nationalism kept racism alive. Do you agree? Disagree? How do we solve the problem? Is this present today?
Unwanted Common Black Culture

13. What do you do when you feel powerless?

14. Are people a product of their environment?