Home of Author Richard Wright

This two-story residence in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood was home to renowned and influential African American author Richard Nathaniel Wright from 1929 to 1932. Wright published his first short story at age sixteen. Later, he worked for the Federal Writers' Project and received critical acclaim for Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of four stories. He is well-known for his 1940 bestseller Native Son and his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy. While residing in the historic second-floor apartment, Wright ostensibly started his professional literary career by writing his first novel, Lawd Today! (published posthumously in 1963). Richard Wright is recognized as one of the preeminent novelists and essayists of the twentieth century whose writings often depicted the grim circumstances that faced Black Americans in Chicago's ghetto and the Jim Crow–era South.

White, born on September 4, 1908, in Roxie, Mississippi, was the grandson of slaves and the son of a sharecropper (although Wright's father left the family when Wright was age five). Although Wright only managed to get a ninth-grade education in Jackson, Mississippi, his passion for reading provided the foundation for his writing talent; he delved into American literature while working odd jobs. In fact, Wright routinely forged notes to check out books on a white coworker's library card in Memphis (Blacks were not allowed to use public libraries). While only sixteen years old, he published his first work (a short story) in a Southern African American newspaper.

The more he read about the world, the more Wright yearned to make a permanent break from the Jim Crow South and travel. In 1927, Wright moved to Chicago, where he both worked at a post office and swept streets. However, Wright struggled during the Great Depression and grew frustrated with American capitalism, moving him to join the Communist Party in 1932. Five years later, he moved to New York and became editor of the Daily Worker and co-editor of Left Front. Wright published numerous poems in Left Front, the Partisan Review, and New Masses. He also joined the Federal Writers' Project.

In 1938, Wright published Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of four stories that earned him a $500 prize from Story magazine and led to a 1939 Guggenheim Fellowship. Wright then published two of his most influential books, Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945). Native Son, a novel set in Chicago's South Side slums, was later adapted for stage and screen. These controversial and assertive texts examined twentieth-century race relations and helped reshape American culture while simultaneously catapulting Wright into the national spotlight as one of the most noted writers of Chicago's Black Renaissance literary movement.

The racism Wright faced in the U.S. led him to move to France permanently in 1947. In the 1950s, he worked for a time on African liberation activities in Ghana, but he also continued to write. Wright published a novel, The Outsider, in 1953, followed by two socio-political narratives, Black Power (1954) and The Color Curtain (1956). Towards the end of his life, Wright published collected lectures known as White Man, Listen! (1957), and then another novel, The Long Dream (1958). After Wright died in Paris, posthumous versions of his works continued to get published, including the short story collection Eight Men (1961), the novels Lawd Today (1963) and American Hunger (1977), and Father's Law (2008), the unfinished novel Wright worked on up to the time of his death.

The historic apartment building serves as a reminder of Wright's short time in Chicago where he lived after fleeing the Jim Crow American South. Both his time in the South and Chicago proved highly inspirational, and Wright used his experiences in his writings. Wright is consistently listed among the most influential American writers of the twentieth century. 

Biography.com Editors. "Richard Wright Biography." The Biography.com website. A&E; Television Networks. March 26, 2021. https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/richard-wright. 

Moskowitz, Milton. "The Enduring Importance of Richard Wright." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 2008. https://www.jbhe.com/features/59_richardwright.html.

"Richard White." Poetry Foundation. Accessed March 13, 2023. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/richard-wright.

"Richard Wright House." City of Chicago: City Landmarks. 2010. https://webapps1.chicago.gov/landmarksweb/web/landmarkdetails.htm?lanId=13006.