Set on the south side of Chicago in the 1930s and written from post-renaissance Harlem, Richard Wright’s Native Son presents the reality of racism in the U.S. during the Jim Crow era. Following protagonist Bigger Thomas through an impoverished life in Chicago, Native Son wrestles with both the systematic and psychological effects of racism on African Americans in urban spaces. The raw and graphic narrative Wright unfolds expresses the reality of American racism. Native Son was one of the first literary texts to fully display black rage and a detailed experience of black life in an urban center.