Matthews Wright was a skilled educator and consultant who gave back to Baltimore

Matthews William Wright was a man of many talents, many vocations and many names.

To family, he was “Billy” or “Bunky.” To college friends and fraternity brothers, “Creasy.” To other friends and colleagues, “Matt.” And in the most professional environments, in a tribute to his mother’s maiden name, he went by his full name, Matthews. Don’t forget the “s” at the end.

No matter what you called him, though, Wright was the same altruistic spirit, vivid storyteller and social-justice advocate, family and friends said. He was always there for his loved ones, who are now celebrating him.

Wright, an educator, consultant and community leader whose career included stops at Associated Black Charities and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, died Feb. 19 of a massive pulmonary thromboembolism. He was 79.

He was born Oct. 15, 1946, to James and Nellie Wright, the baby of the family, with two older sisters and a brother, and a true “son of Baltimore,” friends and family said.

He attended Booker T. Washington Middle School and Frederick Douglass High School. The dog lover had several Dobermans in his youth, adopting the first at his mother’s encouragement after he was robbed by a neighborhood kid during a trip to the store.

He was a social kid. His house was full of nieces and nephews, some of whom were closer in age to him than his siblings. He became an older brother and father figure to many of them, including Cornell Parker Sr.

One of Parker’s earliest memories of “Uncle Billy,” 10 years his senior, dealt with an elementary school book report. When Parker told him on a Friday he had a project on the Liberty Bell due Monday, Wright took him to Philadelphia.

“It’s memories like that, things that Uncle Billy would just go out of the way to do for people — not just family,” Parker said.

After graduating from high school, Wright enrolled at the former Coppin State College. He played on the basketball team during its famed 1966-67 season, when Coppin won its first Maryland Intercollegiate Conference Championship, and was later inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.

He met some of his best friends through the historically Black fraternity Phi Beta Sigma, including Douglas Robertson. The two riffed off each other and went to the same barber shop, Robertson said.

Wright was an “ambassador” for the fraternity who volunteered in the community and tutored younger students, Robertson said.

As a student government representative, Wright also helped lead a successful four-week campus boycott in 1968 to protest state funding gaps for historically Black colleges and universities.

“He would take some challenges that anybody else would just walk away [from],” Robertson said.

Wright met his wife, then Beverly Scriber, during his time at Coppin, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees in special education and criminal justice. She was “his heart,” Robertson said.

They married in May 1976 and had a daughter, Aisha, that year. Their son, Jason, was born nine years later.

While Matthews Wright could be loving and silly, he was often the stricter parent in the couple, his son said.

“My mom definitely kind of softened him up and helped mold him to be the father that we knew,” Jason Wright said, recalling the days he would play golf or watch football with his father.

Wright was always the calm person in crisis, his daughter said, and thought through difficult situations rationally.

“He really left a deep impression on people when he spoke with them,” Aisha Wright-Burke said.

While education served as the foundation of his career — he was a counselor at Bowie State University, a training specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank and a teacher at the Baltimore City Jail — he found his niche in community work.

In 1990, he joined Associated Black Charities, where he managed community grant programs. For five years, he hosted the organization’s radio show “First Up!” to cover local politics and entertainment.

Tony Coffield was managing a youth services group in Harford County when he first connected with Wright at ABC. He remembers Wright, wearing one of his signature bowties, visiting him in the tiny church where they served about 100 kids.

“I got some good news, and I got some bad news,” Coffield recalls Wright saying. The bad news? “You gotta get out of this church.” The good news? “I’m gonna give you a grant to help move you out of this situation.”

Coffield, a young professional at the time, looked to Wright for guidance, he said. Wright taught him the ins and outs of grant applications and fundraising — especially the people part.

For all of his social skills, Matthews was really the “behind-the-scenes guy that was making it work,” Coffield said.

In 1998, he launched Precisely Wright! and Associates, a minority consulting firm that provided training and development services in the U.S. and Europe. He focused on “values clarification” and diversity and inclusion initiatives.

He later served for six years as a member of the Planning Commission of Baltimore and for five years as a program officer for the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education. He ended his career the way he started it — by teaching, until 2020, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“He just wanted a better world and a better place for all of us to be in,” Aisha Wright-Burke said.

A public viewing is scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday at March Funeral Homes on Wabash Avenue. The wake and funeral service will follow Saturday starting at 11 a.m.

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