During the Great Depression, Richard Wright changed several other jobs. To monitor the collision on Wall Street, which opened up the depression, the mail volume fell, Wright’s working hours were cut before he finally lost his mail job. He then began work in 1930 after the novel, cesspool about the black life in chicago which was posthumously published as Present day ! reflecting his post office experience.
In 1931, Wright published the story "Superstition" in the Abbott Monthly Magazine, a black magazine. But unfortunately, the magazine fails before Wright collects any money from them. He was also given the opportunity to write through federal writers. Project. so by the time he moved to new york he wrote most of the novel Present day which was published posthumously in 1963.
Christmas is coming, and Richard temporarily works at the post office, where he again talks with his Irish friend about current events.
When his postal work ends, he digs ditches in the reserves of the Cook County Forest, after which he gets a job at a medical research institute in one of the largest and richest hospitals in Chicago, Michael Reese's hospital. There he is responsible for the care of animals used in medical research. It is immediately emphasized by racial division established by the organs of the hospital. Along with three other black men, Richard is confined to basement corridors to prevent them from mixing with white workers. It cleans the operating and animal cells.
Richard is shocked by the extremely simple and cruel mind of Bill, a boy of his own age, so that he worked and who usually was sleepy or drunk. Unlike others, including two Brand and Cook, who were hired at the institute for a longer period of time, Richard is interested in what the doctors are doing. Once one of the doctors leaves a bottle of Nembutal - an anesthetic. Out of his usual curiosity, Richard opens the bottle and smells of it. Brand pretends that Nembutal is poisonous and scares Richard, telling him to run, or he will die.
Once the authorities sent a young Jewish boy to Richard’s time, cleaning the room. After he determined the time, the boys calculated how long it would take Richard to clear all the rooms and five steps. From this point on Richard begins to feel like a slave, always trying to work against time.
In the hospital, Brand and Cook do nothing but enmity with each other. One day, two begin to talk about the year in which the last cold day in Chicago. Cook pulls a long knife out of his pocket, and Brand grabs an ice ax to protect himself. Between them there is a physical battle. Although no one was hurt, animal cells coagulate, allowing dogs, mice, guinea pigs and rats to scatter everywhere. Four black workers spend the rest of their lunch break trying to sort animals by accidentally placing mice and rats in their cages, not knowing if they are cancer rats or infected with tuberculosis. None of the doctors notices anything bad, and none of the workers tell the director about the disaster. Richard notes that because black workers are grateful, they have learned to form their own code of ethics, values and loyalty.
Meanwhile, the depression is getting worse, and Richard is forced to move his family to a small mean rent apartment. One morning, his mother told him that there was no food for breakfast, and he had to go to the Cook Welfare Office to ask for bread. At the welfare station, Richard is confused at first, but he realizes that there is a rapprochement around him: people share their experiences, thus they unite. He leaves the service of help with a new hope: the possibility that a new understanding of life can be given to those he met there. Richard sheds a part of his cynicism with a desire to understand the ordinary black man.
Richard and his family are still suffering from hunger. With depression in full swing, hunger affects the entire community. But for Richard, hunger again manifests itself in the hunger of knowledge, not just in food. At medical school, Richard craves an education that sees other white youths. But his questions are ignored when the doctor even scares him from learning, telling him that his “brain may explode” if he “knows too much”. Even in Chicago, he still lacks access to education.
Richard also begins to realize that he is not alone in his loneliness and poverty. At the help station, he begins to see that there is a whole society that was rejected by the society itself, like it. Richard begins to realize power. He understands this when black workers try to correct the mess they have committed at the medical school; Richard understands that in the black community - among his co-workers - there is a separate moral code.
On Thursday evening, Richard is invited to join a group of white boys who met at the post office to talk about politics, disputes, eating and drinking. Many of the boys joined the Communist Party. Then one of them, Saul, announces that one of his short stories will be published in a communist magazine. Saul, a member of the John Reed Club, a communist literary organization, convinces Richard to attend one of his meetings. Richard doubts, while the Communist Party is genuinely interested in the black community, but finally attends one of his meetings to ease the boredom. He is given a useful magazine for the Communists and is invited to take part in Left front one of their magazines. Richard decides that he will try to humanize communism with an ordinary person in his letter and compiles several poems that are accepted by certain communist publications.
Richard attends more meetings and realizes that the club has factional disputes between its members. Disputes between authors (those who are primarily responsible for the Left Front) and artists.
Welcoming and encouraging an almost entirely white membership, Wright asks to read and study new masses and international literature, an organ of the International League of Revolutionary Writers. He writes and presents revolutionary poems "I have seen black hands." "Red Love Note" on "Left Front" in the magazine "The Middle Western Clubs John Reed." Then Richard was elected Executive Secretary of the Chicago Club John Reed to satisfy both warring factions. He is trying to satisfy everyone who is trying to keep the Left Front, although members of the Communist Party have seen the publication useless. He organizes a successful lecture series that allows him to meet with various intellectuals. He even continues to lecture on the Negro Literature open forum.
The power struggle at John Reed’s club led to the dissolution of the club’s leadership. Wright was confident in the support of the members of the club if he was ready to join the party. Richard loses some of his cynicism and gets a little hope that the black community can come together to overcome their obstacles. His hope is manifested in his involvement in the Communist Party, which is now joining the fact that it was struck by their opposition to racial discrimination. He was also disappointed in his expectation that life in the North could live with dignity. Richard believes that he can single-handedly combine the political and cultural needs of black society through his words. Richard fully rooted in the Communist Party, reinforced the idea that he would be able to humanize the goals of the communist movement by introducing his business to black culture. He became a member of the Communist Party and published poems and stories in many of his journals, such as The Left Front and The Anvil.
One day, a young Jewish man who presents himself as Comrade Young attends a meeting in Chicago, claiming that he has just moved from Detroit. Being out of money, Jung asks Richard if he can use the John Reed Club headquarters for a stay. Thinking that Young is sincere and loyal, Richard agrees. He gains the trust of senior members. Young are impressive the best artists in the club for their works of art and become accredited by all. Richard is trying to contact the head of Detroit to get information from Jung, but does not receive a response. At one meeting, the young accuses Swann - one of the best young artists of the club - to be a Trotskyist traitor to the workers. Chaos and verbal battles take place inside the club.
Comrade Young suddenly disappears mysteriously. One afternoon, Richard and Comrade Grimm searched the luggage that Young left at the club and found the address of Detroit, to which Richard writes and asks for him. A few days later, he received a response from a psychiatric institution, which said that Young had previously escaped, but was detained and left in custody. All charges against Swann were then dropped, and Richard, along with some other trusted members of the club, kept information about Jung in secret from others.
Meanwhile, the party decides to dissolve the John Reed clubs. At the national meeting in New York to discuss the dissolution of clubs, Richard cannot find a place to stay because he is black.
Now, being a full member of the Communist Party, Richard visits a secret unit - the main form of party organization - collects and offers his idea of humanizing the Communist Party with an ordinary black man, writing a book biographical essays for which. he talks to a member of ross. Ross, however, is accused of inciting unrest, and later accused of treason. High-ranking members, such as Ed Green and Buddy Nilsson, are beginning to suspect Richard of the same crimes. Richard is soon disappointed in the goals of the party and tries to break off all relations with her. He is invited to return to Ross’s testimony of his crimes when Ross cries and asks the Party for forgiveness. Richard has an aversion to political organization and decides that the only way to get in touch with an ordinary person and cause a public reaction is his letter. Participants, in particular Richard, call him an “intellectual” because of his correct speech and clothes. Richard also learns that the division does not approve of his reading materials outside of party literature, arguing that other literatures are bourgeois, not the masses. Richard begins to fear his warlike ignorance. Richard joined the party because he considered them blind to the race, but he was shocked, realizing that they were biased against those who were favored by other socio-economic factors, such as education. Wright, struck by the fact that they can stick someone who grew up in poverty, because he has as a bourgeois. Their unconscious attitude of Richard helps to isolate him from the party and communist vision.
Richard begins to talk to Ross, a communist who was accused of “inciting unrest” for his biographical book. But he begins to receive threats from party leaders with such messages as: “Intellectuals do not fit well into the party, Wright.” One morning, a black communist by the name of Ed Green appeared in Ross’s house and began questioning him. Richard. Green is a member of the Central Committee of the Party - a man with authority and suspicious of Richard’s work. When the days go by, Ross starts talking less and less to Richard. Shortly thereafter, Ross is accused of anti-leadership trends.
Richard is now beginning to view his propaganda and tactics as adorned with lies and impossible promises. He compares the communist speaker and the black preacher, who supposes that, like the church, communism is nothing other than blind faith. He clearly doubts the success of the Communist Party, asking whether the “negros” can give up their fear and corruption and stand up to it. ” By “task”, Wright means overcoming racial oppression and achieving unity.
Richard abandons his idea to make a book of biographical sketches and instead uses his material from Ross to write short stories. When he began to find a literary voice and ideological affinity in the left political ferment of the 1930s, he began to write and publish widely. He wrote stories, articles, and poems for the daily laborer, the new masses, the Midland left, the anvil, and the partisan review. In April 1931, he published his first major story "Superstition" in the "Bishop" Monthly. "The big boy goes home." Talking about the shocking end of childhood of a young black boy, was first published in The New Caravan and presented as the best part of an anthology in major newspapers and magazines. He loves literary and social friendships with Bill Jordan, Abraham Chapman, Howard Nutty and Jane Newton.
