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Nathan Wright Jr.
Throughout Dr. Nathan Wright Jr.'s life he stood as a model and inspiration to many people such as his congregation at the Episcopal Church, his members of the 1967 National Conference on Black Power, his many readers, students, his dear friend Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and the famous Dr. Martin Luther King when Dr.King studied at Boston University. His push for "black empowerment, in which blacks took their rightful place in leadership, even if that meant separatism," created the grounds of the black power movement. His life as a minister, author, poet, and scholar gave him the means to lead the beginning of the black power movement.

Early Life
Dr. Wright was born on August 5, 1923 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio with his twin brother and sisters, Wright's parents created an educational and empowered atmosphere for their children. His father, Nathan Wright Sr., worked as an "insurance agent and the executive secretary of the Cincinnati National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)." Dr. Wright's mother, Parthenia (Hickman) Wright, worked as a school teacher, molding the minds of not only her children, but also the many minds of others in the Cincinnati area. Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. proved to be a very intelligent child, writing his first book, out of eighteen, at the age of fifteen. Good Manners for Good People won a Cincinnati Public Schools Poetry Award.

College Life
Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. inspired to excel in life. In doing so he attended seven colleges and earned six degrees. He started his college education at St. Augustin's College in Raleigh, North Carolina from 1941-1942. Later he attended West Virginia State College in 1943 and then Temple University from 1943-1944. Taking a break from his educational pursuit, Wright served in the U.S. Army Medical Administrative Corps as a second lieutenant, during World War II. After the war Dr. Wright continued his educational path at the University of Cincinnati and received an Associates Degree in 1947. After his graduation, Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. served as the New England field representative for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) while attending the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he received a Bachelors Degree and Master's degree of divinity in 1950. That same year, 1950, he was ordained in the Episcopal Church. While attending Harvard University in 1951-1964, Dr. Wright earned his Master in Sacred Theology degree and his doctorate degree in education, specializing in American history and Philosophy. He also attended Boston State College shortly afterwards and received a master's in education. Dr. Nathan Wright Jr.'s 18 books mainly contributed to the ideas of race in America, black consciousness and black power. He also wrote poetry, a book of sermons, and a volume on Christian philosophy.

Civil Right's Activist
Dr. Nathan Wright Jr.'s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement came in 1946 when he became the center of a protest against random searches by the Cincinnati police. The year after, he participated in the "Journey of Reconciliation" with fifteen other blacks and whites. This event became "an early effort to test the implementation of a U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning integrating interstate bus travel." Many refer to this event as the first Freedom Ride. The term "empowerment" was used by Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. in 1967 to voice his support of "low-income housing legislation proposed by Senator Charles H. Percy, Republican of Illinois. With the help of the members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. forced black power to the front of the line in the mid-1960s.  Others, along with Dr. Wright, felt that any advancement of the African American race in the United States had to happen with the independent actions of the race, "black political power separate from whites." He felt that no matter how noble the efforts of the whites were, they could not solve the problems the African American race faced.  He made a statement for a New York Times reporter saying, "People who are members of a majority group, however sympathetic they may be with those who are oppressed, can never fully identify themselves with the oppressed." Dr. Nathan Wright Jr.'s influential role in the movement grew substantially when he became the chairmen of the 1967 National Conference on Black Power. This gathering took place in Newark, New Jersey. This "conference would soon mark the change in the civil rights movement from demanding individual rights to group solidarity." The convention received an ample amount of support. The meeting held 1,100 delegates from 42 cities and 197 black organizations. The main topic of the conference was to encourage and promote the building of economic power based on a "buy black" campaign. This campaign brought to the forefront the ideas of black national holidays and black universities. It also discussed the "possibility of dividing the United States into two countries, one black and one white."

Career
Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. helped the Republican Party throughout his life by serving on the presidential task forces during both Nixon and Reagan's administration. Dr. Wright started his career in 1950 as an assistant youth minister of the Trinity Church in Boston. He then became a research associate for the Center for Altruistic Studies at Harvard University in 1951-1952. Dr. Wright eventually became the chaplain of the Children's Medical Center at Boston in 1956-1964. From 1964 to 1967 Wright was an instructor of sociology at Lassell Junior College in Auburndale, Massachusetts and a lecturer at New York City Community College. Dr. Wright was a columnist for the Star-Ledger newspaper in Newark, New Jersey in 1968. He also lectured extensively at colleges and in 1969 he became the founding chairman of the department of African and Afro-American studies at the State University of New York at Albany. In 1981, he became communications director at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, New Jersey. Later he traveled the Eastern Seaboard to preach his lifelong message of self-reliance on the behalf of the Episcopal Church. He held memberships in Boston Mayor's Committee on Housing, Empowerment Inc., Massachusetts Governor's Advisory Committee on Civil Rights, International Conference on Black Power, and National Conference on Black Power. He received numerous awards including: New England CORE Man of the Year 1950, Urban League Service Award 1956, Media Workshop Award for Black Power and Urban Unrest 1967, Upsala College honorary LLD 1969, and Alpha Phi Alpha Distinguished Service Award 1971.

Death
After his long career of empowerment and inspiration, Dr. Nathan Wright Jr. retired in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. There he died of kidney failure from difficulties with diabetes on February 22, 2005 at the age of 81. Dr. Wright had a wife, Pauline Wright, five children, eight grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.