Address: 4831 S. Vincennes Ave. Year Built:
1893
Architect:
Unknown
Date Designated a Chicago Landmark:
February 10, 2010
This two-story residence in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood served as home to celebrated author Richard Wright and his extended family from 1929 to 1932. While residing in the second-floor apartment, Wright effectively began his professional literary career writing his first novel, Lawd Today!, which was published posthumously in 1963. He earned the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1939 and then published two of his most influential books, Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945). Native Son, a novel set in the slums of Chicago's South Side, was later adapted for stage and screen. These controversial and powerful texts examined race relations in the 20th-century and are credited with forever changing American culture while catapulting Wright into the national spotlight as one of the most noted writers of Chicago's Black Renaissance literary movement.
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