Wendell Wray was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1926. He grew up in the Beltzhoover neighborhood, attending South Hills High School. Amongst his early interests were reading, making Alexander Calder inspired mobiles and establishing communicative fluency of the Spanish language. Wray served in the United States Army, where he found great pleasure in the USO library. Upon receiving an honorable discharge in 1946, he began the "four happiest years" of his life at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he was active in a number of extracurricular activities and was Poet Laureate of the Class. He graduated in 1950 with a degree in Psychology, initially intending to obtain an advanced degree in the field. Wray matriculated at the University of Connecticut with this goal in mind; however, he abandoned this pursuit after a career aptitude test suggested that he would make a good librarian. Wray returned to Pittsburgh where he attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (which later evolved into the University of Pittsburgh's School of Library and Information Sciences), earning a Masters of Library Science degree in 1952 and making history as the first African American male to graduate from the school. Wray was also the first African American male hired by the Carnegie Public Library, where he worked first in the Adult Circulation department and later in the Public Affairs Division. In July of 1959, he moved to the New York Public Library (NYPL). He began as an Adult Group Specialist, which entailed overseeing cultural activities over 80 individual branches and organizing and regularly presenting at book and film discussion groups. From July 1964 to September 1965, Wray temporarily served as the Acting Curator of the NYPL's prestigious Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Following this, he assumed leadership of the North Manhattan Library Project, an outreach program targeted at the disadvantaged, based at Harlem's Countee Cullen Regional Library. He performed in this capacity for eight years. During the summer of 1973, Wray attended Columbia University's new class in Oral History, financed by Alex Haley. Upon completion of the course, Wray founded the Schomburg Center's Department of Oral History. That same year he departed New York to assume a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Library and Information Sciences. Wray developed and perfected the school's Oral History/ Oral Traditions and African American Bibliography classes; he also instructed on public librarianship and reference. In 1981, Wray was appointed Chief of the Schomburg Center. Unfortunately, despite great aptitude for the task, his decision to hire a white archivist proved controversial and divisive and after considerable personal strain, Wray resigned from his post. He resumed teaching at Pitt in 1983 and was granted Professor Emeritus Status in 1988. Wray continued in this capacity until he moved to Oakland, California, in 1995. Prior to relocation, he donated his extensive personal library to Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pa. Wray remained in Oakland until his death in 2003.
From the description of Papers of Wendell L. Wray, 1885-2003. (University of Pittsburgh). WorldCat record id: 456086128
