The African proverb “Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter” is 
inarguably profound. If wise, it challenges us to consider the source of the historical record and 
the agenda of the author. If the record of the past, sanitized or graphic, serves to illuminate our 
understanding of the present, then it’s inverse, the erasure of the historical record, is to 
purposely misinform. When it is targeted at a specific group its goal is to disenfranchise.
 
As of the writing of this forward, there is a comprehensive and deliberate effort within the 
United States to scrub from general knowledge recognition of the African-American 
contribution. A conversation about the life and times of Charles R. Bowen, as such, in this time, 
becomes a fortuitous coincidence. 

To understand the relevance of Charles R. Bowen is to understand Black men and women 
possessed of equal or greater, intellect, imagination, organization, grit and courage interacting
with the ambitious, often bigoted forces that aspired to segregate and exploit them. It is 
understanding, ironically, segregation can be a powerful tool for self-determination if organized. 
It’s understanding, in the United States, the more you need the less you get. 

Charles R. Bowen belonged to an era that understood power derived from capability and 
respect was achieved when least dependent on its presence. Counter-intuitively, it is a type of 
power integration diluted. Whereas integration has effectively proven to advance individual 
achievement, community organization sustained the “village;” the power of the village being 
wholly dependent on the capability of its unified inhabitants. 

Bowen belonged to an unapologetic era where Black political power moved in stealth, imposed 
its will, community was domain, reciprocity de facto and politics meant retail, door knocking,
face to face, eyeball to eyeball public service. It was when word was bond, a handshake a 
contract (sometimes accompanied by an ‘envelope’), phone calls and new faces suspect and 
pride in ethnic identity an uncontentious, expected, organizing principle. 

The fact Bowen embraced these traits, with humor, instinct and humility, made him welcomed
navigating “over and under” worlds. Liaison and “Fixer” Charles R. Bowen was simultaneously
“hunter” and “lion,” assembler and prince. 

For this biographer, the story of Charles R. Bowen is the story behind the story. He is an 
unvarnished look at the why of who did what, when. His story is a peak behind the curtain of 
history, revealing what we see is, there but for the Grace of God, go you and I.

​

Michael NJ Wright
Biographer
1/10/26
11:58am CST