Marion Thompson Wright (BS, 1916), (1902 - 1962), historian and educator, is profiled in an article entitled ‘New Jersey Black History" Marion Thompson Wright was among the nation's first professionally trained female historians and a pioneer in African- American historical scholarship in New Jersey. During the Great Depression, she was a social worker for the Newark welfare department. During that time, she also was a doctoral student at Columbia University Teachers College where she studied under intellectual historian Merle Curti. Her most significant achievement during that time was her doctoral dissertation, "The Education of Negroes in New Jersey," completed in 1941, which is among the most important studies of New Jersey race relations and African-American history. The first black historian to receive a doctorate at Columbia, she was a pioneer in the study of race relations in the state, laying the foundation for future study that influenced two generations of scholarship on democratic rights and race relations. The Record, Bergen County, NJ, February 28, 2003.

Published Thursday, Mar. 20, 2003