A Face of Grace

Mary Ann "Mother" Wright

By Angela Hill

Oakland Tribune
Posted: 05/08/2009 09:45:49 AM PDT
Updated: 05/09/2009 03:18:58 PM PDT

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

A mother's love isn't always confined to her children.
To be sure, Mary Ann Wright — fondly known throughout the community as Mother Wright — had an abundance of love for her own large family.

But her mothering was expansive, reaching far beyond blood lines to thousands of hungry and needy people during the past three decades. She distributed huge quantities of food, clothing and toys each holiday season from a West Oakland warehouse and helped those in need nearly every day of the week.

Wright, who had been struggling with heart trouble for several years, died Thursday in Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, one of her daughters said Friday. Wright was 87.
"She was in the hospital, but we weren't expecting this," said daughter Carol Wright Barnes, her voice trembling. "She'd been doing fine."

Through the Mary Ann Wright Foundation, Wright, family members and numerous volunteers regularly collected food and clothing from various businesses and other donors to distribute to the needy.

Despite frail health in the past few months, Wright continued her active schedule, usually arriving in the foundation's office at 6 a.m. with her unquenchable spirit and stamina.

"I am deeply saddened by the passing of my friend and community activist Mother Mary Ann Wright," Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said in a statement Friday. Calling Wright "Oakland's Mother Teresa," Lee said Wright's giving spirit "transcended the city of Oakland. She traveled across the globe "... to feed the hungry and nurture the poor."

Oakland's beloved Mother Wright smiles as workers Raymond Young and Scott Sims load a truck with food clothing and toys which was sent to Africa. (Nick Lammers/Staff File)

"She's been the angel to the hungry for many, many years," said Oakland City Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who volunteered with Wright to distribute food on several Thanksgivings. "Her brand of care and generosity is certainly going to be needed now more than ever, so I hope her good work can continue with her foundation."

Mayor Ron Dellums said, "Every Oakland resident who believes in benevolent kindness mourns the passing of Mary Ann Wright — a courageous woman who devoted her life to helping others. ... The most fitting way to honor her memory is to continue the work she advanced and take it upon ourselves to help those within our community who are less fortunate."

"She has given her whole heart and soul to this foundation," her daughter Joel Wright said in a previous interview. "She has helped so many people, not just in the Bay Area but worldwide."

Wright has been recognized numerous times, locally and nationally. In 2005, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans in Washington, D.C. She has also provided help to people in Russia, Vietnam and Kenya, where her organization built a school many years ago.

And though she met Bill Cosby and Aretha Franklin, and was invited to more than one presidential inauguration, she remained ever modest.

"There's so much work to do," Wright said in a 2007 interview with the Oakland Tribune. She said God told her in a dream one night in 1980 to feed the hungry.

"I woke up screaming that night and never went back to sleep," she said. "How could I go back to sleep under my warm blankets when my sisters and brothers were out there lying under the bridges and places with nowhere to go?"

Wright had known need herself. She grew up poor in Louisiana and lost her mother when she was only 5 years old. In 1950 she fled an abusive husband and took her children by train to Oakland where other relatives lived.

She picked cotton, walnuts and strawberries in the East Bay and around the state, and also worked nights in a San Leandro cannery to make ends meet. She eventually married again and ended up with 12 children.

When she was "called" to feed the hungry, she started out as best she could, using her $236 Social Security check to buy food for a weekly dinner in Jefferson Park.

She expanded to other areas of town, trudging beneath overpasses to deliver meals "with dignity," she said, even spreading out table cloths and wrapping forks in napkins.

In recent years, the foundation's warehouse on San Pablo Avenue at 32nd Street has been her main distribution center. At the holidays, long lines always formed outside with Wright often on the sidewalk, bullhorn in hand, leading a prayer as people picked up bags of boxed and canned food, toys and Christmas trees.

"It's a miracle," she said of her life's path. "I'll be here until the Lord comes for me."

Wright is survived by 10 children, 33 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by two sons.

Mother Wright services May 27

By Sean Maher

Oakland Tribune
Posted: 05/18/2009 06:46:03 PM PDT
Updated: 05/19/2009 07:51:03 AM PDT

OAKLAND —

The family of the beloved woman known throughout Oakland as 'Mother Wright', whose namesake foundation continues fighting to bring food and clothing to the poor, announced Monday plans for her public funeral services.

Mary Ann Wright, 87, died May 8, 2009 in a Berkeley hospital, surprising family members despite long years spent struggling with heart problems.

Wright was a beloved public figure. Her daughter, Carol Wright Barnes, said she was working with City Hall to organize a public ceremony and tribute.

On May 27, Wright will lie in state at the Jewett Ballroom in the Oakland Marriott City Center at 1001 Broadway, Barnes said. The space can allow a maximum of 5,000 people.

A civic memorial service will begin in the adjacent Convention Center in the Marriott at 6 that night, she said.

A formal service for Wright will be held at 10 a.m. May 28 at Acts Full Gospel Church at 1034 66th Ave., Barnes said. The church has seating for about 8,000 people.

Guest book: Post condolences for Mother Wright
Slide show: A look back at Mother Wright
Related
May 12:
State Assembly adjourns in memory of Oakland's Mother Wright
May 8:
Mother Wright, 'angel to the hungry,' dies at 87
Dave Newhouse: Wright uses gift of giving to help disadvantaged
Oakland's Mother Wright still serving the needy

Africa's Genetic Secrets Unlocked

Sarah Tishkoff, of the University of Pennsylvania
"This is the first time we have had the genetic data to reconstruct migration events."

By Victoria Gill Science reporter,

BBC News

A genetic map of Africa -

the continent from which all modern humans originate -

has provided information about its huge diversity of language and culture.

It is the result of the largest African genetic study ever undertaken.

The work revealed the continent to be the most genetically diverse place on Earth, and identified descendents of our earliest human ancestors.
The international team of scientists describe their 10-year study in the journal Science.
The team, led by Sarah Tishkoff from the University of Pennsylvania, studied genetic material from 121 African populations.

They collected over 3,000 samples, and identified 14 "ancestral population clusters". These are groups of populations with common genetic ancestry, who share ethnicity and similarities in both their culture and the properties of their languages.

"This is a spectacular insight into the history of African populations and therefore the history of mankind," said Muntaser Ibrahim, a researcher from the University of Khartoum, who was also involved in the study.

The team looked at individual ancestry, or genetic similarities in their samples, by comparing the frequencies of more than 1,000 DNA markers - sections of the DNA code that are known to reveal common genetic heritage.

"In the past, [geneticists] studied just a few Africans, and suggested they were representative of the continent, but we've found that no population is representative of all of this diversity," said Dr Tishkoff.

"Our goal has been to do research that will benefit Africans," she said. "I hope this will set the stage for future genomics research there, and future biomedical research."

The completion of the study could enable such research, allowing the link between genes and disease to be properly studied.

"The genetic variants we've identified may play a role in disease susceptibility and the different ways in which people respond to drugs," Dr Tishkoff explained.

Remote research
Her team had to gather genetic samples from some of the continent's most remote communities.
To extract the important information from blood samples, they have to be "spun down", using a centrifuge to produce a pellet containing the DNA.

"In the most remote areas, we used a centrifuge that plugged into a car battery," Dr Tishkoff recalled.

Largely as a result of these difficulties, a large amount of the group's data comes from populations that have never previously been studied genetically.

“ This is the first time we have had the genetic data to reconstruct migration events ” Sarah Tishkoff University of Pennsylvania

This allows the map to provide an entirely new link between biology, and existing anthropology and linguistic information.

The research also located the origin of modern human migration in south-western Africa, near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola.

This is based on the widely-accepted theory that the highest level of genetic diversity is in the oldest population - the one that has had the longest to evolve.

The site is the homeland of the indigenous San communities, Dr Tishkoff explained.
"It's not surprising but it's a very neat finding because the San have already been shown to have the oldest genetic lineages, suggesting they may be descendents of a population ancestral to all modern humans."

Genetic reconstruction
The data has revealed a great deal about the history of the continent. "This is the first time we have had the genetic data to reconstruct migration events," Dr Tishkoff commented.
Her team, which represented an variety of academic disciplines, showed how genetic and linguistic diversity have co-evolved. This analysis revealed some surprises.

"The Masai people [in Kenya], for example, have maintained their traditional language and pastoral lifestyle, but genetically they've mixed a lot with populations from Ethiopia [who speak a different language]," said Dr Tishkoff.

The researchers also took samples from four African American populations, and traced their African ancestry. This was, as expected, mostly pinned down to West Africa.

Mark Thomas from the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at UCL praised the study, and said that the level of diversity discovered was "broadly what we would expect".

He added that because the origins of African American ancestry can be seen "all the way from Senegal down to Angola, it will be a long time before a DNA test will be able to identify someone's ancestral origin.

"That's despite the ridiculous claims of some of these DNA testing companies."

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8027269.stm

Published: 2009/05/01 09:41:21 GMT