John S. Wright is Morse-Amoco Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of African American & African Studies and English at the University of Minnesota. When he was a graduating senior and member of the Afro-American Action Committee at the U of M, he wrote the Seven Demands that led to the 1969 Morrill Hall Takeover, the founding of the University’s Department of Afro-American & African Studies and its Martin Luther King Program, which he subsequently administered from 1971-73. He was twice appointed a Research Associate at Harvard’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute (1982 & 1991); and joined its Working Group on Black Intellectual History from 1991-93.  In 1991 he served as Scholar in Residence at the Schomburg Research Center in Harlem. Wright spearheaded the acquisition of the Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature and Life in 1985, and served as its Faculty Scholar while leading Givens Collection teacher training seminars and community outreach projects for two decades.