“Not only is Reading a Part of the Foundation in Learning and Understanding, it also Plays A Key Role in All Academic Achievement” -Garry O. Blanson
Last week, while I was performing research at “Books-A-Million Bookstore in Monroe, Louisiana, for my future articles,” I happened to notice a bus full of middle school students,”WHITE STUDENTS TO BE EXACT,” pull up to the entrance of the store. One-by-one they exited their bus and entered the store. After about a hour or so of shopping through the store, each of them headed to the checkout lines. In case anyone was wondering, “EVERY ONE OF THOSE WHITE STUDENTS LEFT THE STORE WITH AT LEAST 2 BOOKS A PIECE!” Needless-to-say, what I witnessed made me wonder about “WHY SO MANY BLACK STUDENTS” at most of the schools in our Black Communities in Monroe, Louisiana “PERFORM SO POORLY ON READING TESTS THEY TAKE IN SCHOOL.” While I won’t mention the name of the school that brought the students to Books-A-Million, I will say that it’s a local public school, and that 65% of the school’s current student body are proficient in reading!” With that said, onto this week’s Black Pioneer.
Marion Thompson Wright was born on September 12, 1902, in East Orange, New Jersey. When Marion earned her College PhD in History from Columbia University in 1940, she became the first Negro in America to earn a College PhD in History! Additionally, beginning in1953, Marion began working as a special assistant to Horace Mann Bond, who was the Deputy Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Her main duties were to assist him in handling Fourteenth Amendment cases. Incidentally, her expertise and research papers prove to be of great use in the HISTORIC LANDMARK COURT case, “Brown vs. The Board of Education.”
In addition to having a College PhD in History, Marion also held a Masters Degree and a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Howard University. Once she had acquired her PhD, she returned to Howard University, where she joined the university’s History Department, and worked laboriously for some 22 years of her life! A few other interesting things to know about Marion is that while teaching at Howard University, she began a paper to help educate students on their Black Heritage, which was known as “The Negro History Bulletin;” her decades of service to various chapters of the NAACP organization; and her work to insure equal access for all students in New Jersey State Schools through legislative reform.
Regretfully, her career and life came to a close on October 26, 1962, when she was found unconscious inside her car, inside her garage. Sometime after her death, Rutgers University initiated their annual “Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series.” The Lectures are held each February as part of the celebration of Black History Month.
