Elizabeth Wright was born in Georgia shortly after the Civil War, during a time when educational opportunities for Black children in the South were scarce to nonexistent. Her early schooling was deeply inadequate; her first teacher was unable to teach her to read. The odds were stacked against her. Both her parents—her mother, Virginia, a Cherokee, and her father, Wesley Wright, an African American—had been enslaved, and the future offered little promise.

Everything began to change when Wright was ten, and her family moved to a town with a better-trained teacher. She absorbed knowledge eagerly, but a chance moment would alter her life forever. At fourteen, while sitting beneath a tree, a gust of wind lifted a scrap of newspaper from a ditch and carried it toward her. Curious, she picked it up and read an advertisement for Tuskegee Industrial School in Alabama. Captivated, she shared it with her teacher, who contacted Booker T. Washington on Wright’s behalf and raised funds to help her attend. Wright herself worked odd jobs, saving every penny.

Her family strongly opposed the idea of her traveling alone, and only after repeated pleas from her teacher did they reluctantly agree. At Tuskegee, Wright was inspired by Washington’s vision and determined to model her life after his example. Students were required to work to pay their expenses, but Wright’s fragile health soon collapsed under the strain. Just as she seemed destined to leave, a scholarship from Judge George W. Kelley of Massachusetts allowed her to remain. She studied not only academics, but the school’s structure, determined to one day establish a similar institution.

The years that followed were grueling. Wright attempted to found schools in South Carolina, enduring hunger, hostility, and repeated acts of violence as buildings were burned and opposition mounted. Her health repeatedly failed, forcing her into recovery at a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan.

At last, in 1897, her vision took root in Denmark, South Carolina. With the help of Senator S. G. Mayfield—who knowingly sacrificed his political future—she founded an industrial school modeled after the Tuskegee Institute. Major financial support arrived in 1901 from Ralph and Elizabeth Voorhees, and the school was renamed Voorhees Industrial School.

Faith anchored Wright’s work. She believed Christian instruction was essential to education, crediting her own spiritual formation at Tuskegee as preparation for her mission.

In 1906, she married Martin Menafee, the school’s bookkeeper, but their happiness was brief. Years of deprivation and exhaustion took their toll. After a failed operation in Battle Creek, Elizabeth Wright died on December 14, 1906. She was laid to rest at the school she built—a lasting testament to a life poured out in service.

Also On This Day

1842 –  John Geddie, Scots-Canadian missionary who was known as “the father of Presbyterian missions in the South Seas.” He pioneered missionary work in the New Hebrides Islands, now known as Vanuatu, died.

1924 – Lutheran theologian and author Walter Maier starts the radio station KFUO, “The Gospel Voice,” at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

1981 – The modern nation of Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights, which had been captured from Syria during the 1967 War.

1993 –Twelve Croatian and Bosnian Christians in Algeria are murdered by Muslims in the Tamezguida region.