Bobby E. Wright

Two of his scholarly works have been described as highly influential by the 2013 National Conference on African/Black Psychology: The Psychopathic Racial Personality (1974, republished in 1984 and other years as one in a series of essays), and Mentacide: The Ultimate Threat to Black Survival (1979).

Speaking at the Annual Afrikan American Institute in 1981, in response to a question about black organization, he stated:

The social political model was an influence from Africans or Blacks in the United States that took their own lives in 1980 due to depression. Bobby Wright's argument of the social - political model was that all persons of African descent living under Caucasian domination that took their own lives were victims of White Supremacy. He saw Black suicide as a political dynamic and also of self - destruction. Due to the psychological adaptation, he believed that the depression because of White dominance was the main reason why Africans in the United States took their own lives. The social political theory is now used to influence the interpersonal- psychological theory of suicide behavior although the bobby Wright's perspective was more of a Western perspective. Despite Bobby Wright's limited amount of writing on the social political model, his theory is used to test emotional disturbances, research physical and mental health workers of Africans living in the United States. The social- political model was used with multi level social integration model which include the implications that police killings and state cover ups were connected with clients own life taking behavior. The social- political model is now used to seek suicide prevention and interventions.

Wright was staunch atheist, and publicly and unhesitatingly attacked theism and religious belief. He wrote the following in the fall issue of Black Books Bulletin in 1974:

He received his BSc in Education and MSc in Counseling from Chicago State University and his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Chicago in 1972. At the point of his untimely death he was President-Elect of the Association of Black Psychologists.

During the mid 1960s he worked as a truant officer in the Chicago Public School system, and led a successful challenge to racist hiring procedures for black teachers. His political work has been credited with helping lay foundations that later enabled the election of Chicago's first African-American mayor, Harold Washington in 1983.

Bobby Eugene Wright (March 1, 1934, Hobson City, Alabama – April 6, 1982, Chicago) was an American clinical psychologist, scholar, educator, political activist and humanitarian.