Bruce M. Wright

Bruce M. Wright was a judge, lawyer, and poet. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1917, Wright was awarded a scholarship to attend Princeton but was denied admission when the university learned he was Black. He was denied admission to Notre Dame on the same grounds. He later graduated from Lincoln University, an HBCU near Philadelphia. After World War II, Wright went AWOL and made his way to Paris, where he befriended the Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, who later became his country's first president. "I was introduced to him as an American poet. All I ever wanted to be in life was a poet," said Wright.

In 1944, Wright published his first poetry collection, From the Shaken Tower, edited by his friend Langston Hughes. Shortly after, he attended Fordham Law School, and ultimately obtained his law degree from New York Law School. After receiving his law degree, he represented many notable clients including Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Malcolm X. New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay named him to the bench in 1970, and in 1982 he was elected to the New York State Supreme Court. He retired in 1994.

In addition to another poetry collection, Repetitions (1980), Wright also published a nonfiction book, Black Robes, White Justice (1987), which examined the role of race in the American judicial system.

Wright died on March 24, 2005, at his home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, at age 87.