In 1971, Jane Wright became the first woman to be elected president of the New York Cancer Society. In 1967, Dr. Wright became professor of surgery, head of the cancer chemotherapy department, and associate dean at New York Medical College, the highest ranked African American woman at a nationally recognized medical institution.

Wright’s father was one of the first African American graduates of Harvard Medical School, and he set a high standard for his daughters. Dr. Louis Wright was the first African American doctor appointed to a staff position at a municipal hospital in New York City and, in 1929, became the city’s first African American police surgeon. He also established the Cancer Research Center at Harlem Hospital. Jane Wright graduated with honors from New York Medical College in 1945.

While pursuing private research at the New York Medical College, she implemented a new comprehensive program to study stroke, heart disease, and cancer, and created another program to instruct doctors in chemotherapy. After a long and fruitful career of cancer research, Dr. Wright retired in 1987. During her forty-year career, Dr. Wright published many research papers on cancer chemotherapy and led delegations of cancer researchers to Africa, China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.