photo by Adam Koob

A stamp bearing the face of Richard Wright is on sale at the Natchez post office.

Native son traveling the world by mail

By Adam Koob (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Sunday, July 26, 2009

NATCHEZ — One of Natchez’s most famous native sons is circulating his way throughout the country on the face of a postage stamp.

In April, without much local fanfare or celebration, the U.S. Postal Service released a stamp bearing the face of Natchez author Richard Wright.

The 61-cent stamp depicts Wright’s face over a Chicago tenement, similar to one Wright lived in when he resided in Chicago, said Terry McCaffrey the U.S. Postal Service’s Manager of Stamp Development.

“It’s a long process,” McCaffrey said of the time it takes for an idea to manifest into an image on a stamp. “Most of the time it takes about a year and a half. But three to five years is not uncommon.”

And getting on a stamp is not only a lengthy process, but several criteria must be met to make the subject eligible to get on the stamp.

McCaffrey said the post office typically gets 50,000 stamp submissions in a single year, from that approximately 20 make it on to the stamp.

The Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee reviews the submissions for merit and checks to make sure that all of the criteria are met before the new stamp is sent to the U.S. Post Master General for final approval.

McCaffrey said Wright’s writings on race-related issues made Wright’s legacy one worth commemorating with a stamp.

Wright’s stamp is now the 25th stamp in the Literary Arts series.

And that fact that Wright was once a clerk at a Chicago post office didn’t do anything to hurt his chances of getting on the stamp, McCaffrey said.

“That helped a bit,” he said.

Charles Wright, Wright’s second cousin, said Natchez should be proud to have one of its own on a stamp.

“I think he really put Natchez on the map,” Wright said. “This is great for the city.”

Wright said he felt few in Natchez knew of the stamp’s release.

“It was a surprise,” he said.

But regardless of who knew, Wright felt certain his cousin, who would be 100 now, would be proud.

“We would have liked it to be here,” he said. “Not too many people knew it was coming out. But now we’re just glad it’s out.”

And as Wright’s works like “Native Son” and “Black Boy” are still in circulation, so to will his stamps be for years to come.

The post office printed 100 million of them.