“Bright and Morning Star” Richard Wright
(1938)
A short story by RICHARDWRIGHTthat appeared
first in a May 1938 issue of NEWMASSES,a Marx-
ist magazine based in New York that opened
Wright’s eyes to the global and “organized search
for the truth of the lives of the oppressed and the
isolated.” He recalled that his first impression of
the magazine was so powerful because “the revolu-
tionary words leaped from the printed page and
struck [him] with tremendous force.” The work
eventually became part of UNCLETOM’SCHIL-
DREN,his 1938 collection of stark novellas.
The plot centered on the courageous and ulti-
mately self-destructive acts of an elderly mother
whose ties to the Communist Party endanger her
and her son. She is betrayed by a man who relays
information that she has provided him to a lynch
mob that is determined to unearth the Communist
sympathizers and network in its midst. Granny Sue,
the matriarch, goes to the public torture of her son,
an event made possible by her own conversations
with the traitor. When her son begins to give in,
she shoots him and then dies when the mob turns
on her. This last story in the later versions of Uncle
Tom’s Childrenwas a shocking meditation on na-
tionalistic hysteria, black self-determination, and
awesome, unexpected examples of maternal inter-
vention.
Bibliography
Delmar, P. Jay. “Tragic Patterns in Richard Wright’s
Uncle Tom’s Children,” Negro American Literature
Forum10, no. 1 (spring 1976): 3–12.
Gayle, Addison. Richard Wright: Ordeal of a Native Son.
Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1980.
Oleson, Carole. “The Symbolic Richness of Richard
Wright’s ‘Bright and Morning Star,’” Negro American
Literature Forum6, no. 4 (winter 1972): 110–112.
Bright Medallion, TheDoris D. Price(1932)
A play in dialect by DORISD. PRICEin which a
young man, who invents a story about his bravery
in World War I, dies because he has to live up to
the false story of his courage. Published in a collec-
tion of plays by University of Michigan students,
edited by Kenneth Rowe, the play charts the evo-
lution of Samuel Hunt, a Texan, who finds a World
War I medal and claims it as his own. In an effort
to maintain the respect of his town and the woman
he loves, Samuel rescues a baby from a burning
building; he succeeds but dies shortly thereafter
from smoke inhalation.Broadway
The major entertainment location in NEWYORK
CITY. By 1925 there were 80 theaters along this
route, an increase of 400 percent since 1900,
when there had been just 20. While Broadway
theaters staged white-authored plays about black
life and featured works with black actors, it was
not until 1923 that the first major play by an
African-American writer was staged on Broad-
way. THECHIPWOMAN’SFORTUNE,a one-act
play by WILLISRICHARDSON, which had previ-
ously performed in HARLEM, opened on Broad-
way in May 1923.Broken Banjo, TheWillis Richardson(1926)
A searing domestic tragedy, this play by WILLIS
RICHARDSONappeared in the March and April
1926 issues of THECRISIS.Richardson, the first
African American to see his work staged on
BROADWAY, offered readers a painful story about a
victimized husband whose wife and in-laws under-
mine his authority and ultimately reveal his dread-
ful secret to police.
Matt Turner is the besieged husband, a banjo
player who seeks refuge in his home from poverty
and the stress of daily life. His wife, Emma, bar-
gains with him for a new pair of shoes when he
tries to prevent her relatives from lounging and
eating in their home. Her materialism, rather than
loyalty to her husband, is the first sign of Matt
Turner’s imminent demise. Matt threatens Emma’s
brother and cousin when he finds that they have
broken the banjo, his most valued possession. They
in turn threaten to reveal him as the murderer of a
white man. After much pleading by Matt, they
promise not to tell and to allow Matt to leave
town. Before he can escape, the two men return
with the police. Emma is at her most pathetic as
she watches her husband being led away.
The play is a forerunner of the domestic re-
alism that emerges most powerfully in plays by64 “Bright and Morning Star”