![]() ![]() The symposium doesn’t appear to have been Wright’s idea, but it could have been: he was a child of the cinema. ![]() “ Native Son” was meant to shock: it tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a black Chicagoan who accidentally murders the daughter of his white employer, then kills his girlfriend, Bessie, while fleeing the police, and ultimately pays for his crimes in the electric chair. Hosted by the League of American Writers, a Communist-affiliated group for which Wright would soon be elected a vice-president, the symposium gathered soon-to-be-blacklisted screenwriters, the future production chief of MGM, and emerging leaders of the civil-rights movement to argue the merits of adapting Wright’s controversial novel. ![]() “Should the Novel Native Son Be Made Into a Motion Picture?” This was the name of a symposium held at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel in May, 1940-just two and a half months after the publication of Richard Wright’s best-selling novel. ![]()
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