by Richard Wright

The son of a sharecropper and a schoolteacher, Richard Wright was born in rural Mississippi on September 4, 1908. Wright's family moved several times before his father left his wife and children in order to live with another woman in 1914. In 1927 Wright fled the South for Chicago, where he was later joined by his mother and brother. Among other jobs, he worked for the post office, sold insurance, and dug ditches before trying unsuccessfully in 1935 to sell his novel, Lawd Today! (which would be published only after his death). Wright first tasted success a few years later with his set of short stories Uncle Tom's Children (1938), which won high acclaim. Then, in 1940, came the release of Native Son, the novel that brought him national and worldwide renown, followed by the publication of his coming-of-age short story "Almos' a Man."

Events in History at the Time of the Short Story