Springfield’s First African American High School Graduate
Last year North Point Boulevard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was renamed Morgan Avenue. Readers might not think that noteworthy until they learn that the person honored with a street name was a Springfield native. She was Gertrude Wright Morgan, an African American whose life, and the lives of others in her family, were remarkable evidence that Black lives have mattered throughout history.
Wright was born in Springfield in 1861. She was the first African American to enroll in a high school in Springfield, the first to graduate from high school in Springfield, and it is believed the first to graduate from a high school in Illinois.