Richard Wright, author of 'Native Son' and 'Black Boy,' told of his unhappy childhood in the South. He was born 100 years ago today. Associated Press

Let us observe the centennial of novelist Richard Wright

Date published: 9/4/2008

CHARLESTON, S.C.

We should commemorate Wright because he defied all the odds. One hundred years ago, he was born poor, black, the son of a sharecropper. In his formative years, he was legally denied access to segregated Southern public libraries. Raised in poverty and hunger, and barely educated in rural Arkansas and Mississippi, Wright believed that "books are weapons." His material spat in the face of indifference, forcing readers to acknowledge the racist underside of the American dream.

In "Native Son," Wright's most famous literary creation, the young, angry, and impoverished Bigger Thomas accidentally kills a white woman, flees the police, and in the course of his flight kills again in cold blood. Despite the ambiguities of his case, Thomas receives the death penalty. "Native Son" and Wright's other classic, "Black Boy," remain on the required reading lists of many high schools and colleges because of the power of their narrative.

And Wright's themes of poverty, the stigma of unequal education, and the violence that poverty breeds are sadly still relevant today, six decades after he wrote about them.

But I'm not sure that Richard Wright would have believed that in the year 2008 a black person could be vying for the presidency of the United States. Like Wright, Sen. Barack Obama has defied a lot of odds, and he's attractive, intelligent, and brave. And he's not a bad writer himself. There's only one characteristic that Obama sometimes seems to lack in comparison with Wright: righteous indignation.

Anger against injustice, tempered by a rational argument and a benevolent spirit, was the force behind Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and the Rev. Martin Luther King. Indignation is the force that drives change, especially when it's politically inexpedient. It's the force that will keep activists pushing for universal health care, a massive reduction of poverty, and the end of the death penalty, regardless of the Democratic or the Republican Party's acceptance of the status quo.

Obama, the unifier, could use a little bit of Wright's indignation. Both Wright and Obama are sources of enormous pride within the black community. For all their differences in approach, the great protest novelist and the great politician offer positive examples that sometimes the impossible can happen.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a writer for the Progressive Media Project.

Date published: 9/4/2008