Interview with Stephen Wright,

Interview Summary

This interview is available in transcript only.

Dr. Stephen J. Wright received his PhD from New York University in 1942. He served as president of Bluefield State College from 1953 through 1957 and Fisk University from 1957 through 1966. He also served as an expert witness to many desegregation cases including Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

Dr. Stephen Wright describes the civil rights movement in Nashville and how it is different from movements in the North and the deep South. He discusses the involvement of students and faculty at Fisk University with the civil rights movement and recalls when faculty members attended the march on Washington in 1963. He mentions his views on Booker T. Washington and the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Wright laments the lack of knowledge about the history of the civil rights movement among young black men and women. Wright also gives some information about the development of his own views and philosophies by describing the role of his grandmother, a former slave, in his early life.

Interview Keyword

Who Speaks for the Negro? (Book)

Interview LC Subject

African Americans--Civil rights Race relations

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.