Civil Rights in Richard Wright’s Native Son

Bigger Thomas, a young man living in 1930s Chicago, takes a job with a wealthy white family, the Daltons. After a night of drinking with her boyfriend, Mary, the Dalton’s only child, dies when Thomas accidentally suffocates her so as not to be heard by Mary’s mother, who would not understand why Thomas was carrying her up to bed. Thomas’s fate, to be tried and convicted of murder, speaks less to Thomas as a person than to the impossible circumstances racism creates within society. This compelling volume delves into author Richard Wright’s life and the divide that made two separate Americas legal. Essays discuss Thomas’s revolutionary consciousness, racial blindness, and the contemporary plight of the millions of African-Americans in prisons due to racism inherent in the justice system. Writers include Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Irving Howe.