For a Colored Woman Who Committed Suicide: Toward a Critical Race Biography of Marion Thompson Wright (1905-1962)

• In Event: Frequently Asked Questions: Engendering the Lives, Work, and Careers of “Little Known” Black Women Educators Who Made History

Abstract

This panel presentation explores the lives, work and careers of four “little known” black women educators—at least outside of academic circles—who made history: Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987), Ethel Thompson Overby (1892-1977), Merze Tate (1905-1996) and Marion Thompson Wright (1905-1962). Through a telling and re-telling of their biographies, which has presented some methodological challenges for each researcher, panelists argue that simply knowing about their lives, work and careers is not enough; rather, knowing about their lives can tell us a great deal about what academics can do “behind the scenes” or “offstage” to improve educational access and opportunity and to serve the public good. As scholars today work to imagine policies and practices in schools and communities that can bring about social justice in education, these black women theorized educational policies and practices that are just as timely today as when they lived.

Marion Thompson Wright contributed to the dismantling of the “separate but equal” doctrine regarding public schooling with her groundbreaking research on the social and historical foundations of segregated education. Within the field of African-American women’s history, she is known as “the first black woman historian to earn a PhD in the United States from Columbia University” (Hine, 2005, p. 55). Actually, Wright earned her Ph.D. at Teachers College in a specialized history and educational sociology program under the direction of social reconstructionist and scholar activist Merle Curti (Murrow & McCarthy, 2009). Through her work as a professor of education at Howard University, Wright wrote and taught about the importance of black history to the preparation of teachers. In 1962, Wright committed suicide.

Author

• Hilton Kelly, Davidson College