Marion Thompson Wright
*Marion Thompson Wright was born on September 12, 1902. She was a Black scholar, educator, and activist.
Marion Manola Thompson was born in East Orange, New Jersey, to Minnie Thompson and Moses R. Thompson. Wright was the youngest of four children and had two older twin sisters and a brother. She attended Barringer High School in Newark, New Jersey. As a teenager, she expressed her frustrations with the New Jersey school system as one of two Black students at her high school. At 16, Wright married William Moss and had two children, Thelma and James.
She left her children with her husband to pursue her high school degree. This was due to the expectations that women would not be accepted into higher universities if married or divorced. A few years later, Wright divorced her husband, leaving her children with her mother while continuing to pursue her education. Wright married Arthur M. Wright but divorced soon after. After graduating from high school, Wright attended Howard University, receiving her bachelor's degree in 1927 before earning her master's in history and education.
After Howard, she attended Teachers College and Columbia University. Wright completed her dissertation, "The Education of Negroes in New Jersey," which focused on the state of education for Blacks and its consistently segregated and unjust schools. Wright became the first Black woman in the United States to earn her Ph.D. in history in 1940. After earning her Ph.D., Wright taught at Howard. She began the Negro History Bulletin to educate students on their Black history. In the 1950s, she worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In addition, the NAACP incorporated Wright's dissertation into the Brown v. Board of Education argument.
At the age of 60, on October 26, 1962, Wright's body was found unresponsive inside her car in her garage. Her death certificate states that she died of cardiopulmonary failure; however, some sources state that she committed suicide. Rutgers University–Newark hosts an annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series each year. The event is a part of the celebration of Black History Month, and in February 2018, Rutgers celebrated its 38th annual lecture series.
