The Childhood, Education and Achievements of Richard Wright
             Richard Wright was the son of an illiterate sharecropper. He was brought up in a dysfunctional home where he suffered poverty and abandonment. He became an essential figure in the development of African American literature, and has been called one of the most powerful writers of the twentieth century. Although Richard Wright experienced a poverty-stricken childhood, he managed to gain a partial education and finally, achieved recognition as a great protest writer.
             Richard Wright suffered a poverty-stricken childhood. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father worked as a sharecropper until Wright was three, when the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Wright and his younger brother hungered for affection, understanding, and attention, as well as for food. They would comb their neighborhood begging for food and money to help his family survive. Wright was also forced to steal in order to eat. Critics say that Wright's behavior was as a result of his father's abandonment.
             At the age of five or six, Richard's father deserted the family, making them victims of extreme poverty. Soon after, his mother suffered paralytic strokes that left her dependant on her own mother. She was forced to put Richard and his brother into an orphanage. After being sexually molested in the orphanage, Richard ran away but he eventually had to return until his mother returned for them. His mother's illness added more stress to his tumultuous childhood because he was forced to discontinue his education at a premature age and work to help his family survive.
             Richard worked many odd jobs in places that were unsuitable for a child his age. He worked in saloons, brothels, and even as a scavenger. His jobs in the South were marked by harassment by whites and his own disdain for what segregation and racism had done to his family. He felt that his family was forced to accept pover...