Home | Nelson Algren | Theodore Dreiser | Richard Wright | James T. Farrell
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Chicago's South Side "black belt" contained zones related to economic status. The poorest blacks lived in northernmost, oldest section of the black belt,
while the elite resided in the southernmost section. Richard Wright, though born in the Southern United States, moved to Chicago's South Side in 1927. He became active in youth programs and an
African American South Side Writer's Group through which he published short stories. "The doorways were wider than those of any house in which he had ever lived. Some rich white folks lived here once, he thought. Rich white folks. That was the way most houses on the South Side were, ornate, old, stinking; homes once of rich white people, now inhabited by Negroes or standing dark and empty with yawning black windows. He remembered that bombs had been thrown by whites into houses like these when Negroes had first moved into the South Side. "14 |
"There was silence. The car sped through the Black Belt, past tall buildings
holding black life. Bigger knew they were thinking of his life and the life
of his people."15 |
Indiana Avenue
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