Gertrude Wright Morgan

Gertrude Wright Morgan (1861 – 1931) was an American women's suffragist and civil rights activist. She was also a founding member of the NAACP and the Niagara Movement. She was the first African American to enroll and the first to graduate in Springfield, Illinois, and is also believed to have been the first to graduate in all of Illinois.

Biography Gertrude was born in 1861 in Springfield, Illinois, to Thomas Wright and Sarah Fortune Wright. Her father was formally enslaved, but later bought himself and Gertrude's brother out of bondage. Because of this, she moved to St. Louis, and taught at an all-black school, Charles Sumner High School. Clement Morgan also worked at this school, and after moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts and returning to St. Louis, he married Gertrude in 1897. Both of them moved to Cambridge, where they were civil rights activists.

Gertrude died in 1931, two years after her husband's death.