I welcome you to join me at the upcoming ninth session of the Richard Wright Discussion Series. This month’s event will take place at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8 at the Armstrong Library. The topic of this session will be Richard Wright’s “The Color Curtain.”

It has been nine months of interesting study of Wright’s work. I have been amazed at how Wright, at an early age, began to record his life as a sharecropper son from the small rural area of Cranfield, to large, extravagant places such as Paris, Russia and Africa. Richard Wright had the desire to understand the culture that he lived.

In his early years, he felt hunger pains that thrived from a touch of slavery, as well as poverty living as a sharecropper’s son. To Wright’s astonishment, when he moved to the city of Memphis, he discovered that those hunger pains still existed. That’s when he came to the realization that hunger pains existed everywhere.

Richard Wright faced many challenges composing novels and other genres of writing about colonization in Africa, communism in Russia, and capitalization in Paris and the United States. Through the culture and religion of these places, Wright found that there were many similarities as well as differences.

Through the fiction and nonfiction works of Richard Wright, you can see through his eyes how each country form of government, culture and religion intertwine with one another.

Richard Wright is an inspiration to us all. He brings before the readers’ eyes every beautiful and terrible aspect of this country. From its horrid slums to its breathtaking landscapes, Wright captivates the essence of living in this country. Through laughter, sorrow, and promises hidden in his works, Wright embarks a legacy and trail blazes a path for the youth of this nation.

So come join me, Dr. Jerry Ward, and others who have developed an interest in the works of Richard Wright for this month’s discussion. You won’t be disappointed.

Charles Wright is a Natchez native and kinsman of Richard Wright.