Pioneering Black Journalist Dale R. Wright Dies

The first reporter to integrate the newsroom at the old New York World Telegram and Sun has died. Dale R. Wright was 86.

Among Wright's best-known work was a ten-part investigative series in the early 1960s about the plight of migrant farm workers. The award-winning series prompted legislators to improve conditions for migrant workers. In 1965, Wright published a book, They Harvest Despair: The Migrant Farm Worker, based on the series.

Wright also worked as a press secretary to notable New York politicians such as Mayor Edward Koch, Sen. Jacob K. Javits, and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

Daughter Kimberly Wright-King says her father died at a Bronx nursing home Dec. 13 of chronic kidney disease and cardiopulmonary arrest.

Wright is survived by his daughter and a son.