Donald R. Wright

Don Wright is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, Emeritus, at SUNY-Cortland, where he taught African, African-American, and world history for 31 years. He was born in Richmond, Indiana, got degrees from DePauw and Indiana Universities, and moved to the Finger Lakes Region of New York "because there was a job there." He spent 1974-75 collecting oral traditions in The Gambia and Senegal and has visited Gambia regularly ever since. He was a Scholar in Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation's Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, in 2003; held the Mark Clark Distinguished Visiting Chair of History at The Citadel in 2005-06; received fellowships from Fulbright-Hayes and the National Endowment for the Humanities; and held lectureships in universities in South Africa and China. He lives with his wife, Doris, in Beaufort, South Carolina.