Wright's mother was so mad that she beat him until he was unconscious. While living in his grandparents' home, he accidentally set the house on fire. In 1911 or 1912 Ella moved to Natchez, Mississippi to be with her parents. Richard's father left the family when Richard was six years old, and he did not see Richard for 25 years. Civil War and gained freedom through service: his paternal grandfather Nathan Wright (1842–1904) had served in the 28th United States Colored Troops his maternal grandfather Richard Wilson (1847–1921) escaped from slavery in the South to serve in the US Navy as a Landsman in April 1865.
Each of his grandfathers had taken part in the U.S. His parents were born free after the Civil War both sets of his grandparents had been born into slavery and freed as a result of the war. JanuChicago, Illinois) who was a schoolteacher. 1940) who was a sharecropper and Ella (Wilson) (b. Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on Septemat Rucker's Plantation, between the train town of Roxie and the larger river city of Natchez, Mississippi. Richard Wright's memoir, Black Boy, covers the interval in his life from 1912 until May 1936.
A historic marker in Natchez, Mississippi, commemorating Richard Wright, who was born near the city Childhood in the South
