Charles Wright

Wright, Charles S. (1932), novelist, columnist, short fiction writer, and black humorist. Charles Stevenson Wright was born and raised west of Columbia, Missouri, in the small town of New Franklin. Upon his release from the army in 1954, he wrote “No Regrets,” an unpublished novel about an affair between a black beatnik from New York City's East Village and an upper-class white girl. Not until the 1960s would Wright begin publishing the blackly humorous, passionately idiosyncratic books that add tragic clarity to the nightmare of contemporary African American existence.

In The Messenger (1963), Wright draws so extensively upon his life that fact and fiction often blur. Realistically narrated in the first person by a fair-skinned black Manhattanite named Charles Stevenson, the novel dramatizes the isolation and alienation of persons who fall prey to America's social, economic, and racial caste systems. Stevenson, a New York City messenger, constantly finds himself on the edges of power, yet is utterly devoid of any. A man perceived as neither black nor white, “a minority within a minority,” he is cast adrift in the naturalistic city of New York, where victory and defeat are accepted “with the same marvelous indifference.”

The Messenger brought Wright recognition and modest commercial success, but initially his 1966 novel The Wig was not well-received. Today, however, many people would agree with Ishmael Reed's 1973 assertion that The Wig is “one of the most underrated novels by a black person in this century” (John O'Brien, Interviews with Black Writers, 1973).

Wright's use of fantasy and hyperbole distinguishes The Wig from most African American fiction of the mid-1960s.Set” in an America of tomorrow,” the novel depicts the desperately failed efforts of a twenty-one-year-old black Harlemite named Lester Jefferson to live the American dream. The book ends with his literal (and willed) emasculation, after Jefferson learns that the money he has earned parading around the streets in New York in an electrified chicken suit will prove useless to his successfully courting the black prostitute he has idealized as his “all-American girl.”

The years between 1966 and 1973 found Wright in various foreign and domestic locales. But his literary psyche remained firmly planted in New York City, the setting of the nonfictional pieces he began writing for the Village Voice, Collected, amended, and supplemented, these columns came to comprise Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About (1973), a book filled with the same drug users, male and female prostitutes, abusive policemen, and underinquisitive detectives one finds in his novels. These, plus America's unstinting racism, have rid Wright of his optimism as surely as Mr. Fishback rids Lester Jefferson of his masculinity at the end of The Wig.

In 1993, Wright's novels were collected in a publication again titled Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About: Complete Novels. Reading this collection makes it clear that Charles Wright is an innovator who in breaking with traditional fictional modes during the 1960s helped to negotiate space for Ishmael Reed, Clarence Major, and other African American avantgardists.

Bibliography

• Frances S. Foster, “Charles Wright: Black Black Humorist,” CLA Journal 15 (1971): 44–53. John O'Brien “Charles Wright,” in Interviews with Black Writers, 1973, pp. 245–257.
• Eberhard Kreutzer, “Dark Ghetto Fantasy and the Great Society: Charles Wright's The Wig,” in The Afro-American Novel since 1960, eds. Peter Bruck and Wolfgang Karrer, 1982, pp. 145–166.
• Frank Campenni “Charles (Stevenson) Wright” In Contemporary Novelists, ed., Susan Windisch Brown, 1996, pp. 1072–73

Joe Weixlmann

physician; writer; activist

Personal Information

Born Charles Howard Wright on September 20, 1918 in Dothan, Alabama; married Louise L. Lovett (deceased); married Roberta Hughes, 1989; children: (with Lovett) Stephanie Jeanne, Carla Louise
Education: Alabama State College (now University), B.S., 1939; Meharry Medical College, M.D., 1943.
Religion: Protestant.
Memberships: American College of Surgeons, fellow; American College of NAACP, life member; National Medical Association; public television station WTVS, board of trustees.

Career

Physician: private practice, Detroit, 1946-50; Hutzel Hospital attending/senior attending physician, 1953-86; Hutzel Hospital honorary staff member 1986-02; conducted medical surveys for U.S. Government in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierre Leone, 1964, and Dahomey, 1965; assistant clinical professor of OB-GYN at Wayne State University, 1965-83; doctor onboard S.S. Hope in Columbia, 1967; guest lecturer at Rutgers University, 1974; Grace Hospital, Sinai Hospital, staff member; Highland Park General Hospital, chairman of department of obstetrics and gynecology; founded International Afro-American Museum, 1965 (renamed Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 1998); founded of the Association of African American Museums with Margaret Burroughs, 1967; author: Robeson: Labor's Forgotten Championship, 1975; The Peace Advocacy of Paul Robeson, 1984, The National Medical Association Demands Equal Opportunity: Nothing More Nothing Less, 1995; The Wright Man, 1999; playwright: Were You There?, 1963; The Caracas Gang, 1975.

Life's Work

Charles H. Wright was a soft-spoken gentleman with a modest frame, whose Southern charm and excellent manners connected him to a reminiscent era. Only his tenacity and integrity upstaged his humble physician by trade who left more to his name than thousands of healthy babies. His legacy also includes the Charles H. Wright African American Museum--the fruition of tireless efforts to educate African-American people about their culture, and to share that cultural knowledge with people of all races. Whether memorialized as the founder of an important museum, a noted physician, an activist, or a writer, Wright's accomplishments are reflective of an influential and visionary pioneer.

Wright was born on September 18, 1918 in Dothan, Alabama, in a poverty-stricken area of the South. He attended Southeast Alabama High School. The school had few resources, only four teachers, and no heat or indoor plumbing. He graduated in 1935 without even taking a biology or calculus class. Inspired by his mother and driven by his own strength of mind, Wright was determined to become a doctor. He entered Alabama State College (now University) and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1939. That fall, Wright headed to Meharry Medical School in Nashville and realized his dream, receiving his medical degree in 1943.

From Meharry, Wright traveled to New York to become an intern and pathology resident at Harlem Hospital. He then accepted a second pathology residency at Cleveland City Hospital, which he completed in 1945. The following year Wright moved to Detroit and went into private practice as a general practitioner, before deciding to go back to Harlem Hospital when a spot in their obstetrics and gynecology residency program opened. He became a board certified OB-GYN specialist and a general surgeon in 1953.

Fought Discrimination as a Detroit Physician

That same year, Wright returned to Detroit and became the first African-American physician at Hutzel Hospital, then a women's hospital. He later became a senior attending physician and stayed with Hutzel until he retired in 1986. His position led him to fight for the equality of his patients. When Wright wrote a letter to state senator Phil Hart, exposing Hutzel's segregation practices. The hospital would not allow Wright's black patients to be admitted in rooms with white patients, and it did not accept black interns or residents. "So I wrote [senator Phil Hart] and told him, 'Don't send them a dime," Wright was quoted as saying on www.med.umich.edu. "and I said, 'now you don't have to come at any time, any particular time to check on it, come any time and see for yourself.' And he sat down and sent copies of everything I said to him to the chairman of the board of trustees at Hutzel. He said, 'Dr. Wright is accusing you of this. Is it true?' Well, he made such a noise until he might come and look. And did you know the next day they were integrated?"

Wright also made quite an impression on those who studied under him. "If the resident came in and Dr. Wright had already begun surgery, he would tell the resident, 'too late, we already started, we don't need you today,'" Dr. Hassan Amirilia told the Michigan Chronicle. "It was important to Dr. Wright to teach the resident discipline, and at the same time demonstrate a respect for the patient by beginning on time. He cared deeply for his patients."

Though Wright was already establishing himself as an exceptional activist and physician in Detroit, he sought to do more. In 1960 he spearheaded the African Medical Education Fund through the Detroit Medical Society to raise money to train African medical students in America. In the 1960s Wright traveled to areas including Bogalusa, Louisiana to serve as a resident physician during the civil rights marches and to Cartegena, Columbia to serve on a floating hospital named S.S. Hope. He also served as a medical missionary in Africa.

Began Museum in a House Basement

When Wright's travels allowed him time away from work, he collected artifacts from across the globe. His collection of African artifacts prompted his 1965 decision to convert the basement of a west side Detroit home that he owned into a black history museum. He named it the International Afro-American Museum (IAM). IAM became a traveling museum a year after it was founded. IAM toured the state in a converted mobile home seeking to form a connection between citizens and their history. It was not long before the museum was gaining recognition with field trips and media coverage. Soon it became apparent that Wright needed assistance running the popular museum, so he hired a full-time director. Wright paid about $1,000 each month to support his small staff and to cover the museum costs.

Wright was passionate about sharing black history with others--especially his patients. "I'd bring healthy babies into the world and I'd see them later and they'd be psychologically scarred," he was quoted as saying in the Detroit Free Press. "I saw we had to do something about society--and the museum was an effort to do that."

By the mid 1970s Wright had to his credit not only his career as a doctor and accolades as the founder of a unique museum, but he was also an assistant clinical professor at Wayne State University, a playwright, an author, and the producer of several medical recruitment films. In addition to serving at Hutzel Hospital, Wright had been a senior attending physician at Sinai Hospital.

In 1985 Wright's wife died, but he found love again after meeting Roberta Hughes, while collecting information on her father--an African American radiology specialist. Hughes was also widowed. A relationship blossomed between Wright and Hughes, and they married several years later.

In 1985 IAM and the City of Detroit formed a partnership to build a new facility for the museum. The partners secured $3.5 million for a new facility in Detroit's University Cultural Center. In 1987 the museum, which had been renamed the Museum of African American History, moved to a new 28,000 square-foot building.

Museum Renamed in His Honor

While museum affairs flourished, Wright found himself increasingly "out of the loop" with the operations and matters of the museum that he founded more than two decades earlier. Wright ended his official association with the museum in 1990 after a disagreement with then-mayor Coleman Young about plans to build a larger, more brilliant museum site. Plans went on without Wright, and in 1997 an extraordinary building with brass doors, a glass dome ceiling, stone walls, and an amazing wealth of historical content opened to the public. The museum became the largest of its kind in the world, and its annual budget went from about $1.6 million to $7.8 million.

A year after it's opening, the $38.4 million building was rededicated, this time with a gesture to mend burned bridges with Wright. His name was added as a prefix to the museum name, which became the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. The museum was "the most difficult delivery I ever made." Wright was quoted as saying in the Detroit Free Press.

Since being moved to its current home, the museum has hosted numerous displays and exhibits including "In the Spirit," a exhibition chronicling the work Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through a pictorial display; an exhibition of the underground railroad; Garret Morgan's first traffic signal; and Samella Lewis' original drawing of the design of the dime. One of the most unique permanent displays is a depiction of the Middle Passage, for which local teenagers posed for the life-like statues of slaves who lined the floor of a slave ship in route to America.

Left Legacy in Detroit

With the turn of the millennium, Wright's health began to deteriorate. He suffered a series of small strokes between 2000 and 2002 that caused his speech to slur and his muscles to weaken. Still his exterior condition had not shaken his inner spirit. "I'm doing just fine," he was quoted as saying in the Detroit Free Press.

On March 7, 2002, Wright died at the age of 83, in a Southfield, Michigan hospital after suffering a heart attack. He was survived by his wife and two daughters from his first marriage--Stephanie Jeanne and Carla Louise. Wright's visitation was held at the museum. Hundreds of people--family members, friends, politicians, former patients, and even strangers, showed up to pay their last respects. Wright, who had delivered more than 7,000 babies during his exceptional career, died before seeing the reunion of the now-adult babies he had delivered. The reunion, which was placed on hold after his death, was scheduled to take place at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

Long after his memory has faded in the minds of the medical students he mentored and the people whose lives he touched, his legacy will continue to speak to generations to come through his ventures and the museum which bears his name. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick told the Detroit Free Press, "In the old African tradition, so long as one man speaks your name, that means you will never die. In the city of Detroit, the legacy that Charles Wright has left us means he will never die."

Awards

Lifetime Achievement Award, Detroit Medical Society; Dr. Alain Locke Award, Friends of African Art at the DIA; Humanitarian Award, 100 Black Men of America, 1998; Michiganian of the Year, Detroit News, 1998; 1999 Governors' Award for Arts & Culture, Detroit News.

Works

Selected writings

• Were You There?, (play) 1963.
• The Caracas Gang, (play) 1975.
• Robeson: Labor's Forgotten Championship, 1975.
• The Peace Advocacy of Paul Robeson, 1984.
• The National Medical Association Demands Equal Opportunity: Nothing More Nothing Less, 1995.
• The Wright Man, 1999.

Further Reading

Periodicals

• Detroit News, February 12, 2002; March 9, 2002.
• Detroit Free Press, March 8, 2002; March11, 2002.
• St. Louis Dispatch (MO), April 24, 2000.

• www.artserve.michigan.org
• Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, www.maah-detroit.org
• www.med.umich.edu
• www.nynyessortment.com

— Shellie M. Saunders

Quotes:

"It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, And all the various things that lock our wrists to the past."

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