Richard Wright (1908–1960), novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist, was born on a farm near Natchez, Mississippi. He had a difficult childhood of poverty, emotional neglect, and frequent relocations. His father abandoned the family in 1914 and, for a time, Wright and his brother stayed in an orphanage. His mother, frequently ill, was forced to depend on relatives. Wright read widely, getting books from Memphis's "whites only" public library by forging a note from a white patron. In 1925, he graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in Jackson.

After moving to Chicago, Wright found work with the Federal Writers' Project and joined a Communist literary society. His concern with the social roots of racial oppression led him to join the Communist Party in 1932. In 1937 Wright moved to New York to become Harlem editor of the Daily Worker. Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of short stories published in l938, portrays the oppression of African Americans in the South. With the financial support of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Wright completed Native Son (1940), one of the first best-sellers written by an African-American author.