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Summary Judgment
I pass judgment on the inaptly-named "New York State Unified Court System" and other irritating things.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Idiot's Guide to Getting Out of Jury Duty
Quickie disclaimer. Please read aloud: BY READING THE FOLLOWING, I UNDERSTAND THAT MARSHALL R. ISAACS IS NOT ENCOURAGING ME TO ATTEMPT TO GET OUT OF JURY DUTY. TO THE CONTRARY, MARSHALL R. ISAACS HAS INFORMED ME THAT JURY DUTY IS MY CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY AND HAS ENCOURAGED ME TO GLEEFULLY SIT IN A CROWDED ROOM WITH A BUNCH OF CRANKY PEOPLE, MANY OF WHOM REEK OF BODY ODOR, WHILE MY CO-WORKERS STEAL MY CLIENTS BY TELLING THEM I'VE RUN OFF WITH THEIR LIFE SAVINGS.
If I had a dollar for every person who asked me how to get out of jury duty, I'd have about, well, forty dollars. Not coincidentally, this is what jurors get paid per day to serve jury duty in New York State.I mention this at the outset for the benefit of the staggering 8.1% of you who are unemployed: Do not try to get out of jury duty. Forty bucks is forty bucks and, heck, maybe you'll make some new, unemployed friends to pal around with. Skip the rest of this article and go sign on for a high-profile murder trial.Getting back to those of you still gainfully employed, there are numerous articles on the web explaining how to get out of jury duty. Here's a bunch:WikiHow: How to Get out of Jury Duty Ezine Articles: Get out of Jury Duty - Find the Perfect Excuse
FullDuplex.Org: How to Get out of Jury Duty
AssociatedContent.Com: Valid Excuses to Get out of Jury Duty
Print them out but do not read them.Place them under your dog's arse or use them for your kid's next papier mache project. You don't need these articles to know that you can get out of jury duty if you are a Marine stationed in Iraq or are about to undergo emergency triple bypass.
So how does one get out jury duty? Well, as they say in the porn industry, here's the money-shot:
You have to say, "I cannot be fair and impartial."
Sing along this time!
"I cannot be fair and impartial."
Once again, this time with a little more enthusiasm!
"I cannot be fair and impartial."
Easy, right? It's like when you discovered you could solve Rubik's cube by plucking the plastic colored pieces off and reattaching them in the correct order.
Do not falter when you say ICBFI! You must be strong. Whispering, "um, er, I'm not so sure if I can be fair and impartial" is like crying on your first day in prison. The attorneys will latch on like angry Dobermans. They'll say things to you like, "Well, nobody's sure they could jump out of a burning building but they tend to feel differently once their asses catch fire." Before long, you'll be listening to opening statements.
Of course, ICBFI does not work in a vacuum. You can't just walk into the courthouse like Rainman repeating ICBFI robotically to anyone in your path. First, you need something that you can't be fair and impartial about.
Let's say, for example, you are on the panel of a criminal case and you have a not-so-distant relative who is a traffic cop. You will be asked if you can temporarily set aside what you've heard from your not-so-distant relative, listen to all of the evidence in the case at hand and render a fair and impartial decision.
If, and only if, you feel this way, you should say, "Oh, no, I cannot put what I've heard aside. Nobody just 'gets arrested'. That person had to have done something wrong." Then comes the moment of truth; the moment for you to shine.
All together now!
"I cannot be fair and impartial."
Nicely done.
Shortly thereafter, you will be returned to central jury. Rinse and repeat as needed until your mandatory service is over. (Usually three days).
Congratulations. You have gotten yourself out of jury duty.
http://theununifiedcourtsystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/idiots-guide-to-getting-out-of-jury.html
Monday, May 3, 2010
I dream before i take the stand
This story got me so mad! "He: a man, probably a lawyer" drove me crazy. He asked so many question and half the time it was the same question, "She: a petite woman" should have not answered anymore more question. I would of honestly punching that guy in the face. I would say don't asking me the same question and get moving! But thats just me =]
where are you going, where have you been?
Arnold- Friend was first of all a total creep. Connie might think she is mature, but seriously what the hell is her problem? when she knew she was in trouble she never should of told him she was going to call the police. If i was in her situation i would call the police right away. Being a "young women" home ALONE no matter how scared i was i would pick up that phone. That's the difference of trying to be mature, or act mature you can't make stupid mistakes. Honestly you should not have to think to pick up the phone and call if your in danger.
This story i thought was sad just because it shows the reality that everyone always wants to look like someone else. And how Carla and Bethany switched "souls" or bodies at the end was a true wake up call. FOr even myself, I always give into the media, for example in the U.S if you have curves or hips and healthy, people stare and comment you need to lose weight. But if your a twig your like this goddess. You need to look a certain way to be beautiful through the medias eyes, But in other villages and countries they envy woman who have curves because it shows a sign of wealth, and you could carry a child. So what i say now is "I love my curves, so envy me" =]
Tape
I thought it would be interesting to research this author Jose Rivera.
Jose Rivera was born in Lima, Peru, in 1911. After studying medicine at the University of San Marcos he moved to the United States. He resumed his studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He earned his doctoral degree from Georgetown University in 1939.
In 1942 Rivera joined the United States Army and served as first lieutenant in the medical corps. He was stationed at Walter Reed Army Hospital and later assigned to Halloran General Army Hospital in New York. In 1944 he was promoted to captain and went on a series of assignments in Italy and France and at the 198th General Army Hospital in Berlin.
During the Korean War he served in the Medical Field Unit and was promoted to the rank of major. After the war, he was chief of laboratory service and pathology at the U.S. Army Hospital in Tokyo. In 1958, he was assigned to the Reserve Training Center in Washington.
Rivera sat on the National Institute of Health Board of Directors. A fellow director in the early 1960s was Alton Ochsner. In 1963 Rivera was in New Orleans handing out research grants from NIH to the Tulane Medical School.
In April, 1963, Adele Edisen met Rivera at a biomedical scientific conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The conference had been organized by the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology. Rivera told Edisen that he been on the faculty of the biochemistry department at Loyola University in New Orleans, and that he was now living in Washington. Edisen was planning to visit Washington and so Rivera suggested she she telephone him when she arrived in the city.
Adele Edisen arrived in Washington on 22nd April, 1963. She telephoned Rivera and had dinner with him at Blackie's House of Beef restaurant. During the meal Rivera asked Adele if she knew Lee Harvey Oswald. He also talked about the Carousel Club in Dallas.
The following evening Rivera gave Adele Edisen a tour of Washington. When they passed the White House he asked Edisen, "I wonder what Jackie will do when her husband dies?" After Adele replied "What!", Rivera said, "Oh, oh, I meant the baby. She might lose the baby."
During the tour Rivera made several comments about John F. Kennedy. Adele later reported: "He asked me if I saw Caroline on her pony Macaroni, and all kinds of crazy nonsense, and I was beginning to think I was with an absolute madman.... Rivera's part of the conversation at times was difficult to follow, but many of his statements, such as the reference to 'Jackie,' seemed deliberately placed. When he spoke of President Kennedy, Rivera was extremely critical of Kennedy's position on civil rights. Rivera made many disparaging remarks about black people and the civil rights movement."
Later that evening Rivera asked Adele Edisen to carry out a couple of tasks when she arrived home in New Orleans. This included contacting Winston DeMonsabert, a member of the faculty at Loyola University. He then asked her to call Lee Harvey Oswald at 899-4244. "Write down this name: Lee Harvey Oswald. Tell him to kill the chief." Rivera then said, "No, no, don't write that down. You will remember it when you get to New Orleans. We're just playing a little joke on him."
Adele phoned this number in early May and was told by the man who answered that there was no one there by the name of Oswald. Later, when she called again, the same man answered, saying that Oswald had just arrived but was not there at the time. Instead she spoke to Marina Oswald and asked her if she might call again in a few days to speak with her husband when he was at home. Marina only spoke Russian to Adele but seemed to understand her request because she replied, "Da". The next time she phoned she got Oswald, but he denied knowing Jose Rivera. Adele asked Oswald for the address where the telephone he was speaking on was located. Oswald gave her an address on Magazine Street. She did not give Oswald Rivera's message.
Adele was concerned that Rivera might be involved in a plot against President John F. Kennedy. She decided to contact the Secret Service in New Orleans and spoke to Special Agent Rice. According to Adele, "After giving my name, address and telephone number to him, I told him I had met a man in Washington in April who said some strange things about the President which I thought they should know. It was my intention to go there and tell them about Rivera and his statements, but I began to think they might not believe me, so I called back and cancelled. Agent Rice told me they would be there any time I would care to come in."
Two days after the assassination Adele Edisen arranged a meeting with Secret Service Agent John Rice. Also at the meeting was Orrin Bartlett, Liaison Special Agent of the FBI: "Mr. Rice was seated at his desk, and I was seated to his right, and the FBI agent remained standing most of the time. I believe he may have taped it because every time Mr. Rice got up from his desk, there was a partition over there, for example, and there was a phone there which they used even though there was a phone on the desk, which I didn't understand, but apparently there was some reason for that. So every time Mr. Rice got up to answer the phone or to use the phone, I noticed his hand would do this, and I would either hear a whirring, a mechanical sound like a tape recorder or something. It may have been audiotaped."
Adele told them the story of how she met Rivera in Atlantic City and Washington in April. She also supplied the agents with Rivera's office and home telephone numbers. Edisen later claimed that: "Agent Rice asked me to call them if I remembered anything else, and requested that I not tell anyone I had been there to speak with them. I understood this to be for my own protection as well as for their investigation. Both agents thanked me for speaking with them."
Adele Edisen contacted Rice a few days later and he told her, "Don't worry. That man can't hurt you." Edisen assumed that Rivera had been arrested and that she would be called as a witness before the Warren Commission. "When the Warren Report was published, I was mystified and dismayed by the conclusion that Oswald acted alone, and that Jack Ruby acted alone, for my experiences told me otherwise."
After retiring from the United States Army in 1965 Rivera started a second career as a medical research analyst at the Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness.
Jose Rivera died of pancreatic cancer in Naval Medical Center in Bethesda on 16th August, 1989.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrivera.htm
Jose Rivera was born in Lima, Peru, in 1911. After studying medicine at the University of San Marcos he moved to the United States. He resumed his studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He earned his doctoral degree from Georgetown University in 1939.
In 1942 Rivera joined the United States Army and served as first lieutenant in the medical corps. He was stationed at Walter Reed Army Hospital and later assigned to Halloran General Army Hospital in New York. In 1944 he was promoted to captain and went on a series of assignments in Italy and France and at the 198th General Army Hospital in Berlin.
During the Korean War he served in the Medical Field Unit and was promoted to the rank of major. After the war, he was chief of laboratory service and pathology at the U.S. Army Hospital in Tokyo. In 1958, he was assigned to the Reserve Training Center in Washington.
Rivera sat on the National Institute of Health Board of Directors. A fellow director in the early 1960s was Alton Ochsner. In 1963 Rivera was in New Orleans handing out research grants from NIH to the Tulane Medical School.
In April, 1963, Adele Edisen met Rivera at a biomedical scientific conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The conference had been organized by the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology. Rivera told Edisen that he been on the faculty of the biochemistry department at Loyola University in New Orleans, and that he was now living in Washington. Edisen was planning to visit Washington and so Rivera suggested she she telephone him when she arrived in the city.
Adele Edisen arrived in Washington on 22nd April, 1963. She telephoned Rivera and had dinner with him at Blackie's House of Beef restaurant. During the meal Rivera asked Adele if she knew Lee Harvey Oswald. He also talked about the Carousel Club in Dallas.
The following evening Rivera gave Adele Edisen a tour of Washington. When they passed the White House he asked Edisen, "I wonder what Jackie will do when her husband dies?" After Adele replied "What!", Rivera said, "Oh, oh, I meant the baby. She might lose the baby."
During the tour Rivera made several comments about John F. Kennedy. Adele later reported: "He asked me if I saw Caroline on her pony Macaroni, and all kinds of crazy nonsense, and I was beginning to think I was with an absolute madman.... Rivera's part of the conversation at times was difficult to follow, but many of his statements, such as the reference to 'Jackie,' seemed deliberately placed. When he spoke of President Kennedy, Rivera was extremely critical of Kennedy's position on civil rights. Rivera made many disparaging remarks about black people and the civil rights movement."
Later that evening Rivera asked Adele Edisen to carry out a couple of tasks when she arrived home in New Orleans. This included contacting Winston DeMonsabert, a member of the faculty at Loyola University. He then asked her to call Lee Harvey Oswald at 899-4244. "Write down this name: Lee Harvey Oswald. Tell him to kill the chief." Rivera then said, "No, no, don't write that down. You will remember it when you get to New Orleans. We're just playing a little joke on him."
Adele phoned this number in early May and was told by the man who answered that there was no one there by the name of Oswald. Later, when she called again, the same man answered, saying that Oswald had just arrived but was not there at the time. Instead she spoke to Marina Oswald and asked her if she might call again in a few days to speak with her husband when he was at home. Marina only spoke Russian to Adele but seemed to understand her request because she replied, "Da". The next time she phoned she got Oswald, but he denied knowing Jose Rivera. Adele asked Oswald for the address where the telephone he was speaking on was located. Oswald gave her an address on Magazine Street. She did not give Oswald Rivera's message.
Adele was concerned that Rivera might be involved in a plot against President John F. Kennedy. She decided to contact the Secret Service in New Orleans and spoke to Special Agent Rice. According to Adele, "After giving my name, address and telephone number to him, I told him I had met a man in Washington in April who said some strange things about the President which I thought they should know. It was my intention to go there and tell them about Rivera and his statements, but I began to think they might not believe me, so I called back and cancelled. Agent Rice told me they would be there any time I would care to come in."
Two days after the assassination Adele Edisen arranged a meeting with Secret Service Agent John Rice. Also at the meeting was Orrin Bartlett, Liaison Special Agent of the FBI: "Mr. Rice was seated at his desk, and I was seated to his right, and the FBI agent remained standing most of the time. I believe he may have taped it because every time Mr. Rice got up from his desk, there was a partition over there, for example, and there was a phone there which they used even though there was a phone on the desk, which I didn't understand, but apparently there was some reason for that. So every time Mr. Rice got up to answer the phone or to use the phone, I noticed his hand would do this, and I would either hear a whirring, a mechanical sound like a tape recorder or something. It may have been audiotaped."
Adele told them the story of how she met Rivera in Atlantic City and Washington in April. She also supplied the agents with Rivera's office and home telephone numbers. Edisen later claimed that: "Agent Rice asked me to call them if I remembered anything else, and requested that I not tell anyone I had been there to speak with them. I understood this to be for my own protection as well as for their investigation. Both agents thanked me for speaking with them."
Adele Edisen contacted Rice a few days later and he told her, "Don't worry. That man can't hurt you." Edisen assumed that Rivera had been arrested and that she would be called as a witness before the Warren Commission. "When the Warren Report was published, I was mystified and dismayed by the conclusion that Oswald acted alone, and that Jack Ruby acted alone, for my experiences told me otherwise."
After retiring from the United States Army in 1965 Rivera started a second career as a medical research analyst at the Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness.
Jose Rivera died of pancreatic cancer in Naval Medical Center in Bethesda on 16th August, 1989.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrivera.htm
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Market America
I teach people how to get PAID to shop, on what there already buying! If you want more information please contact me.
www.marketamerica.com/troyingemi
I also specialize in make-up/ skincare and give FREE makeovers!!
www.marketamerica.com/troyingemi
I also specialize in make-up/ skincare and give FREE makeovers!!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Big Black Good Man
I really wanted to learn more about the author Richard Wright because I liked the story "Big Black Good Man." It was pretty funny to me. I shows that he tried to create a mirror image to the United States.
Richard Nathan Wright was born September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi (not far from Nachez), the son of Nathan Wright, an illiterate sharecropper, and Ella Wilson Wright, a schoolteacher, and the grandson of slaves. In 1911 Ella takes Wright and barely one year old brother Leon Alan to Natchez to live with her family and the father later joins them and finds work in a sawmill. In 1913, the four Wrights moved to Memphis, Tennessee. But within a year, Nathan deserts them for another woman and Ella works as a cook to support the family.
In September 1915, Richard entered school at Howe Institute. However, Ella fell ill early in 1916 and Richard's father Nathan's mother came for a while to care for the family. When she left, Richard and Alan had to live for a brief time in an orphange until Ella could have them live with her parents in Jackson, Mississippi. But again, Richard, Alan, and Ella were moved, this time with Ella's sister Maggieand her husband Silas Hoskins in Elaine, Arkansas. But whites murdered Hoskins, and the family ran to West Helena, Arkansas, and then to Jackson, Mississippi. After a few months, they return to West Helena, where mother and aunt cook and clean for whites. Soon, Aunt Maggie goes north to Detroit with her new lover.
Wright entered school in the fall of 1918, but was forced to leave afer a few months because his mother's poor health forces him to earn money to support the family. Unable to pay their rent, the family moved and Wright gathers excess coal next to the railroad tracks in order to heat the home. When his mother suffers a paralyzing stroke, they return with Ella's Mother to Jackson, and Aunt Maggie takes Leon Alan to Detroit with her.
At the age of 13, Richard entered the fifth grade in Jackson, and he was soon placed in sixth grade. In addition, he delivers newspapers and works briefly with a traveling insurance salesman. The next year, he entered the seventh grade and his grandfather died. He managed to earn enough to buy textbooks, food, and clothes by running errands for whites. In the meantime, Richard read pulp novels, magazines, and anything he can get his hands on. During the winter, he writes his first short story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre," which is published in the spring of 1924 in the Jackson Southern Register. In May 1925, Wright graduates valedictorian of his ninth grade. He begins high school, but as Leon Alan has returned from Detroit, quits after only a few weeks so he can earn money. At ties he worked two or even three jobs.
In 1927, Richard read H. L. Mencken, and from Mencken, Wright learned about and read Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Frank Harris, and others. Wright and Aunt Maggie moved to Chicago, while his mother and brother returned to Jackson, where Wright worked as a dishwasher and delivery boy until finding temporary employment with the postal service in Chicago. His mother and brother moved in with Wright and Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Cleopatra joins them. He makes friends, both black and white, in the post office, writes regularly, and attends meetings of black literary groups.
Following the stock market crash, Wright loses his postal job, but began work, in 1930, on a novel, "Cesspool," (published posthumously in 1970's as Lawd Today!) that reflects his experience in the post office. In 1931 Wright publishes a short story, "Superstition," in Abbott's Monthly Magazine, a black journal that fails before Wright collects any money from them. However, he did get an opportunity to write through the Federal Writers' Project. He became a member of the Communist Party and published poetry and short stories in such magazines as Left Front, Anvil, and New Masses.
He went to New York for the American Writers' Congress, where he speaks on "The Isolation of the Negro Writer." He publishes a poem about lynching in Partisan Review and writes an article for New Masses entitled "Joe Louis Uncovers Dynamite." After his return, he is hired by the Federal Writers' Project to research the history of Illinois and of the Negro in Chicago. His short story "Big Boy Leaves Home" (1936) appears in The New Caravan anthology, where it attracts mainstream critical attention.
In 1937 Richard Wright went to New York City, where he became Harlem editor of the Communist paper, Daily Worker. He helps to launch the magazine New Challenge , and publishes "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" in American Stuff: WPA Writers' Anthology. "Blueprint for Negro Writing" appears in the first and only issue of New Challenge. A second novel manuscript, "Tarbaby's Dawn," makes the rounds with publishers and receives constant rejection; it is never published, but "Fire and Cloud" wins first prize in a Story Magazine contest.
The next year, Uncle Tom's Children is published in March to wide acclaim. "Bright and Morning Star" appears in New Masses, and Wright soon joins that magazine's editorial board. He works on a new novel and asks Margaret Walker to send him newspaper clippings from the Robert Nixon case in Chicago. In October, he finishes the first draft of this novel, which he calls Native Son. "Fire and Cloud" wins the O. Henry Memorial Award. By February 1939 he has a completed second draft of Native Son. After winning a Guggenheim Fellowship, Wright resigns from the Federal Writers' Project. In June, he finishes Native Son and marries Dhima Rose Meadman, a white modern-dance teacher. Ralph Ellison is his best man. He begins work on a new novel, "Little Sister," which is never published.
Native Son is published 1940 in March and the Book-of-the-Month Club offers it as a main selection. Though the book is banned in Birmingham, Alabama, libraries, Wright becomes internatinally famous. Unhappy with the stage adaptation of Native Son that Paul Green has been working on, Wright and John Houseman revise it with Orson Welles in mind as director. The book is a best-seller and is staged successfully as a play on Broadway (1941) by Orson Welles.
Wright expresses his opposition to the war first by signing onto an anti-war appeal by the League of American Writers, and second by publishing "Not My People's War." Both items appear in New Masses in 1941. He criticizes Roosevelt's racial policies in a 27 June speech to the NAACP, although communist party pressure forces him to lessen his critique. Wright gets involved in music: "Note on Jim Crow Blues" prefaces blues singer Josh White's Southern Exposure album and Paul Robeson, accompanied by the Count Basie orchestra, records Wright's blues song, "King Joe." Twelve Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States published in October. Wright becomes interested in psychoanalysis as a result of his reading Fredric Wertham's Dark Legend. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Wright signs a petition, which appears in New Masses, supporting America's entry into the war.
Wright is not drafted in 1942 because he is his family's sole support, but he unsuccessfully tries to secure a special commission in the psychological warfare or propoganda services of the army. He publishes "The Man Who Lived Underground" in Accent and "What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You" in Harper's Magazine. He breaks quietly with the Communist party. Wright begins American Hunger. In 1943 the FBI begins interviewing Wright's associates and neighbors, presumably to determine if 12 Million Black Voices constitutes sedition, but while that inquiry concludes during 1943, the FBI's investigations continue until Wright's death.
Book-of-the-Month Club tells Harper that it only wants the first section of American Hunger, which describes Wright's southern experience. Wright agrees to this demand and titles the new volume Black Boy. The second section is not published until 1977 (as American Hunger). "I Tried to Be a Communist" appears in the Atlantic Monthly, causing New Masses and Daily Worker to denounce and disown Wright. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth in March 1945. It remains on the bestseller list from 29 April until 6 June. Theodore Bilbo, a senator from Mississippi, labels the book obscene. That year Wright also helped James Baldwin win a fellowship.
In 1947, a Hollywood producer offers to film Native Son, but wants to change Bigger Thomas to a white man; Wright refuses. Wright's works are being translated into several European languages. Wright decides to move the family to Europe permanently. But in reaction to the continued racism he encountered in America, Wright decided to move to France as a permanent expatriate. While in France, Wright took a growing interest in anti-colonial movements and also travelled extensively. Wright himself played Bigger in a motion-picture version of Native Son made in Argentina in 1951 .
Late in 1952, Wright begins working on a novel about a white psychopathic murderer. The Outsider (1953), was acclaimed as the first American existential novel. Three later novels were not well-received. Among his polemical writings of that period was White Man, Listen! (1957), which was originally a series of lectures given in Europe.
Wright had considerable company as an exile in Paris. James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Chester Himes were just the most notable of the presences. Meetings amongst the individuals are lengendary.
In February 1957, Pagan Spain appears. It fails to sell well, despite favorable reviews. In October, Doubleday publishes a collection of Wright's lectures entitled White Man, Listen!. 1958 Wright finishes The Long Dream, his novel about Mississippi, and begins to work on its sequel, "Island of Hallucinations," which is set in France. When The Long Dream is published by Doubleday in October, it receives poor and sometimes hostile reviews, and it does not sell well.
On 14 January, 1959 , Wright's mother dies. In February, Wright sends Reynolds the manuscript for "Island of Hallucinations." He meets with Martin Luther King, Jr., who is on his way to India. Wright's new editor, Timothy Seldes, asks for substantial revisions on "Island of Hallucinations." Wright shelves the project and never completes it. In the spring, his play Daddy Goodness opens in Paris. Best American Stories of 1958 includes Wright's "Big Black Good Man."
A stage adaptation of The Long Dream opens on Broadway February 17, 1960 to poor reviews and closes within a week. Of his completed Haiku, Wright prepares 811 for publication. He begins a new novel, "A Father's Law," during the summer, but on returning to Paris in September, he falls ill. He prepares Eight Men, a collection of short stories, which World Publishers will publish in 1961. November 28, 1960, Wright dies. The cause of death is listed as heart attack. On the third of December, Wright is cremated along with a copy of Black Boy. His ashes remain at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The autobiographical American Hunger, which narrates Wright's experiences after moving to the North, was published posthumously in 1977.
Some of the more candid passages dealing with race, sex, and politics in Wright's books had been cut or omitted before original publication. Unexpurgated versions of Native Son, Black Boy, and his other works were published in 1991, however.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/wright/wright_bio.html
Richard Nathan Wright was born September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi (not far from Nachez), the son of Nathan Wright, an illiterate sharecropper, and Ella Wilson Wright, a schoolteacher, and the grandson of slaves. In 1911 Ella takes Wright and barely one year old brother Leon Alan to Natchez to live with her family and the father later joins them and finds work in a sawmill. In 1913, the four Wrights moved to Memphis, Tennessee. But within a year, Nathan deserts them for another woman and Ella works as a cook to support the family.
In September 1915, Richard entered school at Howe Institute. However, Ella fell ill early in 1916 and Richard's father Nathan's mother came for a while to care for the family. When she left, Richard and Alan had to live for a brief time in an orphange until Ella could have them live with her parents in Jackson, Mississippi. But again, Richard, Alan, and Ella were moved, this time with Ella's sister Maggieand her husband Silas Hoskins in Elaine, Arkansas. But whites murdered Hoskins, and the family ran to West Helena, Arkansas, and then to Jackson, Mississippi. After a few months, they return to West Helena, where mother and aunt cook and clean for whites. Soon, Aunt Maggie goes north to Detroit with her new lover.
Wright entered school in the fall of 1918, but was forced to leave afer a few months because his mother's poor health forces him to earn money to support the family. Unable to pay their rent, the family moved and Wright gathers excess coal next to the railroad tracks in order to heat the home. When his mother suffers a paralyzing stroke, they return with Ella's Mother to Jackson, and Aunt Maggie takes Leon Alan to Detroit with her.
At the age of 13, Richard entered the fifth grade in Jackson, and he was soon placed in sixth grade. In addition, he delivers newspapers and works briefly with a traveling insurance salesman. The next year, he entered the seventh grade and his grandfather died. He managed to earn enough to buy textbooks, food, and clothes by running errands for whites. In the meantime, Richard read pulp novels, magazines, and anything he can get his hands on. During the winter, he writes his first short story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre," which is published in the spring of 1924 in the Jackson Southern Register. In May 1925, Wright graduates valedictorian of his ninth grade. He begins high school, but as Leon Alan has returned from Detroit, quits after only a few weeks so he can earn money. At ties he worked two or even three jobs.
In 1927, Richard read H. L. Mencken, and from Mencken, Wright learned about and read Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Frank Harris, and others. Wright and Aunt Maggie moved to Chicago, while his mother and brother returned to Jackson, where Wright worked as a dishwasher and delivery boy until finding temporary employment with the postal service in Chicago. His mother and brother moved in with Wright and Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Cleopatra joins them. He makes friends, both black and white, in the post office, writes regularly, and attends meetings of black literary groups.
Following the stock market crash, Wright loses his postal job, but began work, in 1930, on a novel, "Cesspool," (published posthumously in 1970's as Lawd Today!) that reflects his experience in the post office. In 1931 Wright publishes a short story, "Superstition," in Abbott's Monthly Magazine, a black journal that fails before Wright collects any money from them. However, he did get an opportunity to write through the Federal Writers' Project. He became a member of the Communist Party and published poetry and short stories in such magazines as Left Front, Anvil, and New Masses.
He went to New York for the American Writers' Congress, where he speaks on "The Isolation of the Negro Writer." He publishes a poem about lynching in Partisan Review and writes an article for New Masses entitled "Joe Louis Uncovers Dynamite." After his return, he is hired by the Federal Writers' Project to research the history of Illinois and of the Negro in Chicago. His short story "Big Boy Leaves Home" (1936) appears in The New Caravan anthology, where it attracts mainstream critical attention.
In 1937 Richard Wright went to New York City, where he became Harlem editor of the Communist paper, Daily Worker. He helps to launch the magazine New Challenge , and publishes "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" in American Stuff: WPA Writers' Anthology. "Blueprint for Negro Writing" appears in the first and only issue of New Challenge. A second novel manuscript, "Tarbaby's Dawn," makes the rounds with publishers and receives constant rejection; it is never published, but "Fire and Cloud" wins first prize in a Story Magazine contest.
The next year, Uncle Tom's Children is published in March to wide acclaim. "Bright and Morning Star" appears in New Masses, and Wright soon joins that magazine's editorial board. He works on a new novel and asks Margaret Walker to send him newspaper clippings from the Robert Nixon case in Chicago. In October, he finishes the first draft of this novel, which he calls Native Son. "Fire and Cloud" wins the O. Henry Memorial Award. By February 1939 he has a completed second draft of Native Son. After winning a Guggenheim Fellowship, Wright resigns from the Federal Writers' Project. In June, he finishes Native Son and marries Dhima Rose Meadman, a white modern-dance teacher. Ralph Ellison is his best man. He begins work on a new novel, "Little Sister," which is never published.
Native Son is published 1940 in March and the Book-of-the-Month Club offers it as a main selection. Though the book is banned in Birmingham, Alabama, libraries, Wright becomes internatinally famous. Unhappy with the stage adaptation of Native Son that Paul Green has been working on, Wright and John Houseman revise it with Orson Welles in mind as director. The book is a best-seller and is staged successfully as a play on Broadway (1941) by Orson Welles.
Wright expresses his opposition to the war first by signing onto an anti-war appeal by the League of American Writers, and second by publishing "Not My People's War." Both items appear in New Masses in 1941. He criticizes Roosevelt's racial policies in a 27 June speech to the NAACP, although communist party pressure forces him to lessen his critique. Wright gets involved in music: "Note on Jim Crow Blues" prefaces blues singer Josh White's Southern Exposure album and Paul Robeson, accompanied by the Count Basie orchestra, records Wright's blues song, "King Joe." Twelve Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States published in October. Wright becomes interested in psychoanalysis as a result of his reading Fredric Wertham's Dark Legend. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Wright signs a petition, which appears in New Masses, supporting America's entry into the war.
Wright is not drafted in 1942 because he is his family's sole support, but he unsuccessfully tries to secure a special commission in the psychological warfare or propoganda services of the army. He publishes "The Man Who Lived Underground" in Accent and "What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You" in Harper's Magazine. He breaks quietly with the Communist party. Wright begins American Hunger. In 1943 the FBI begins interviewing Wright's associates and neighbors, presumably to determine if 12 Million Black Voices constitutes sedition, but while that inquiry concludes during 1943, the FBI's investigations continue until Wright's death.
Book-of-the-Month Club tells Harper that it only wants the first section of American Hunger, which describes Wright's southern experience. Wright agrees to this demand and titles the new volume Black Boy. The second section is not published until 1977 (as American Hunger). "I Tried to Be a Communist" appears in the Atlantic Monthly, causing New Masses and Daily Worker to denounce and disown Wright. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth in March 1945. It remains on the bestseller list from 29 April until 6 June. Theodore Bilbo, a senator from Mississippi, labels the book obscene. That year Wright also helped James Baldwin win a fellowship.
In 1947, a Hollywood producer offers to film Native Son, but wants to change Bigger Thomas to a white man; Wright refuses. Wright's works are being translated into several European languages. Wright decides to move the family to Europe permanently. But in reaction to the continued racism he encountered in America, Wright decided to move to France as a permanent expatriate. While in France, Wright took a growing interest in anti-colonial movements and also travelled extensively. Wright himself played Bigger in a motion-picture version of Native Son made in Argentina in 1951 .
Late in 1952, Wright begins working on a novel about a white psychopathic murderer. The Outsider (1953), was acclaimed as the first American existential novel. Three later novels were not well-received. Among his polemical writings of that period was White Man, Listen! (1957), which was originally a series of lectures given in Europe.
Wright had considerable company as an exile in Paris. James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Chester Himes were just the most notable of the presences. Meetings amongst the individuals are lengendary.
In February 1957, Pagan Spain appears. It fails to sell well, despite favorable reviews. In October, Doubleday publishes a collection of Wright's lectures entitled White Man, Listen!. 1958 Wright finishes The Long Dream, his novel about Mississippi, and begins to work on its sequel, "Island of Hallucinations," which is set in France. When The Long Dream is published by Doubleday in October, it receives poor and sometimes hostile reviews, and it does not sell well.
On 14 January, 1959 , Wright's mother dies. In February, Wright sends Reynolds the manuscript for "Island of Hallucinations." He meets with Martin Luther King, Jr., who is on his way to India. Wright's new editor, Timothy Seldes, asks for substantial revisions on "Island of Hallucinations." Wright shelves the project and never completes it. In the spring, his play Daddy Goodness opens in Paris. Best American Stories of 1958 includes Wright's "Big Black Good Man."
A stage adaptation of The Long Dream opens on Broadway February 17, 1960 to poor reviews and closes within a week. Of his completed Haiku, Wright prepares 811 for publication. He begins a new novel, "A Father's Law," during the summer, but on returning to Paris in September, he falls ill. He prepares Eight Men, a collection of short stories, which World Publishers will publish in 1961. November 28, 1960, Wright dies. The cause of death is listed as heart attack. On the third of December, Wright is cremated along with a copy of Black Boy. His ashes remain at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The autobiographical American Hunger, which narrates Wright's experiences after moving to the North, was published posthumously in 1977.
Some of the more candid passages dealing with race, sex, and politics in Wright's books had been cut or omitted before original publication. Unexpurgated versions of Native Son, Black Boy, and his other works were published in 1991, however.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/wright/wright_bio.html
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