The Rising of Robert Richard Wright

Robert Richard Wright

If the measure of a man is the distance they travel in life, then without fail I can say Robert Richard Wright was a great man. He was born into slavery in Dalton Georgia on May 16, 1855. The aftermath of the Civil war brought with it great possibilities for the once enslaved. He attended the Storrs School. The school would later be called Atlanta University. In 1988 it would become Clark Atlanta University. It is said that while he was at Storrs School retired Union General Oliver Otis Howard Asked what message should he take to the North? A young Wright filled with the possibilities and aspirations of his age told the general, “Sir, tell them we are rising’. This phrase would become the battle cry of an oppressed people that has inspired books and even a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Wright did indeed rise. He was the valedictorian at Atlanta University’s first commencement ceremony in 1876. His next step was to become the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He filled his time with becoming a professor and later president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. He even showed his versatility and became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church during this time.

 In 1891 he became the first President of Georgia State Industrial College (what is now known as Savannah State University) a historical black college. He developed the curriculum after studying Booker T. Washington and reading W E B Dubois and others. The curriculum included both classical liberal arts and a vocational education.   He became a leader in the new black higher education movement. His connections and presence brought visitors and lecturers to campus such as Mary McLeod Bethune, George Washington Carver, Walter Barnard Hill, Lucy Craft Laney, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.  Even two U.S. presidents William McKinley and William Howard Taft visited the campus and spoke to students during his tenure as president.

During the Spanish American War he joined the Army. In 1898 President McKinley appointed him a Major and paymaster of the United States Army. These two positions were of prominence for an African American. He was the first black paymaster and the highest ranking African American officer. Because the war was short he served less than a year with honor.

He would continue as president of the Georgia State industrial College (Savannah State University) for thirty years. At the end of his term over four hundred students now attended. This was a far cry from the eight with which he started.

But Wright did not retire he was still rising when he entered the business world in 1921 He started the Philadelphia's Citizens and Southern Bank and Trust Company the only African-American-owned bank in the North. Being a banker he founded the Negro Bankers Association, the first African-American banking association. He showed remarkable fiscal skills because under his leadership, the bank withstood the Great Depression. The bank was sold ten years after his death. The bank had accumulated assets of $5.5 million.

One of his most significant accomplishments was his plan to celebrate February 1 each year to celebrate the signing of the 13th amendment to the U S Constitution which freed all slaves. One year after Wright's death in 1947, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a bill to make February 1 National Freedom Day. The holiday proclamation was signed into law on June 30, 1948, by President Harry Truman. The passage of National Freedom Day set the groundwork for Black History Month to be established in 1976 a practice the famed educator Carter G. Woodson started in 1926.

The rising did not stop with him but continued with his daughter Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre. She too earned a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. She became the first full-time African-American teacher in the Philadelphia public-school system. She served as a senior high-school principal and as the first female president of the Philadelphia Board of Education. At the age of 80, she established the "Tell Them We Are Rising" program, promising to pay college tuition for 116 sixth-graders in two poor North Philadelphia schools if they completed high school.
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Robert Richard Wright measures tall amongst men and serves as reminder for all of us as long as we are rising we can accomplish many things.
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Hill Hall on Savannah State University Campus