The Rev. Nathan Wright Jr., an Episcopal minister and scholar who was a leading voice in the debate over black power in the 1960s, has died. He was 81.
Wright died Feb. 22 of diabetes at his home in East Stroudsburg, Pa., according to his son, Chi Wright.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday March 08, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 59 words Type of Material: Correction
Wright obituary -- An obituary of the Rev. Nathan Wright Jr. in Friday's California section said he had a doctorate in divinity from the Episcopal Theology School in Cambridge, Mass. He had a bachelor's degree in divinity from that institution. The obituary also said he worked in the Episcopal Archdiocese in Newark, N.J. He worked in the Episcopal Diocese.
Erudite and sophisticated, Wright was the author of 18 books, many of them dealing with race in America. He also wrote poetry, a book of sermons and a volume on Christian philosophy.
In addition, he was a columnist for the Star-Ledger newspaper in Newark, N.J., and, according to his son, his writing was syndicated in 100 papers around the country. As a young man, he was a participant in the "Journey of Reconciliation," an early effort to test the implementation of a U.S. Supreme Court decision integrating interstate bus travel.
With leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as its primary advocates, black power came to fruition as a political idea in the mid-1960s.
Faced with continued white resistance to integration in the South, key leaders of SNCC -- including Stokely Carmichael and later H. Rap Brown -- came to believe that any progress for African Americans in America could come only through independent black political power separate from whites.
This separatist idea led to divisions within the civil rights movement, with organizations such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League voicing their opposition.
Wright, serving in the Episcopal Archdiocese of Newark's department of urban work, supported black power but was seen as a moderating public voice. His writings offered what one critic called "a benign version."
Of his book "Let's Work Together," August Meier, writing in the Saturday Review magazine, noted: "Wright's vision is not the destruction of America but the fulfillment of its ideals under the leadership of its creative black minority."
Wright's most influential role came as chairman of the 1967 National Conference on Black Power. The gathering, which was held in Newark and attended by more than 1,000 delegates representing 286 organizations, symbolized a major shift in African American intellectual life.
At the start of the conference, Wright told a New York Times reporter that his notion of black power depended "on the capacity of black people to be and to become themselves, not only for their own good, but for the enrichment of the lives of all."
