In the spring of 1925, a 16-year-old Jackson, Mississippi, schoolboy named Richard Wright wrote his first story. He took it to the new black paper in town, the Southern Register, showing it to the editor, Malcolm Rogers, who promptly published it. Shortly thereafter, Wright, who worked as a local paperboy for the Chicago Defender, graduated from eighth grade at Smith Robertson Elementary School as valedictorian. He would go on to attend the new local black high school for only a few weeks before dropping out to work. On his way to school, Wright and a friend would bicycle through the white section of town and dig through the garbage cans for magazines and books to read. This excerpt from Black Boy, originally published in 1945, talks about that first publication. READ MORE