Born in 1908 to a family of sharecroppers on a plantation not far from Natchez, Mississippi, Wright became one of the foremost authors of the twentieth century. In 1940, his novel Native Son made its first published appearance as a Book-of-the-Month Club Selection and quickly became an international bestseller. The story follows the misdeeds of Bigger Thomas, a black man living in a Chicago slum who accidentally kills a white woman, and then murders a black female mistakenly believing she has betrayed him to the police. In the climactic court scene, Thomas's lawyer attempts to sway the jury by claiming that American society is partially to blame for his criminal acts. Wright refused several offers from Hollywood to adapt his story for the screen to avoid compromising his message of racial injustice. One producer, for instance, proposed changing the race of Bigger Thomas to that of an oppressed white minority.

Finally, a top French director, Pierre Chenal, assured Wright that he would preserve the story's integrity, and together, the two men collaborated on the screenplay. Canada Lee, who played Bigger Thomas in Orson Welles' theatrical version, agreed to reprise the character for the film, but by the time production finally began, the actor had committed to other projects. Without any prior acting experience, Wright stepped into the role. Most of the filming occurred on a studio lot in Argentina although exterior Chicago scenes were shot on location. Native Son premiered in November 1950 on a Pan-American flight. However, by the time it appeared on American screens in 1951 over thirty minutes of the film lay on the cutting room floor of the New York Board of Censors. The era's Production Code prohibited miscegenation and also mandated that a movie could not create sympathy for a criminal at the expense of those responsible for upholding justice. The movie was a box office and critical failure.

In 1986, another production attempted to capture the classic novel on film. First begun as television project for PBS's American Playhouse series, the producers decided instead to release it instead on the big screen. Victor Love plays Bigger Thomas, and the cast includes Elizabeth McGovern and Matt Dillon. Ironically, the director chose to delete several of the same scenes censored from the first film in an effort to make Bigger Thomas "a commercially viable hero."

On display is a movie still of Richard Wright and Gloria Madison from 1951. The pressbook for that first film includes a synopsis of the plot, cast and crew credits, illustrations of posters and lobby cards, and provides theater managers with articles and advertisement for submission to local newspapers.