Activist Nellie Bright put her community first

Community activist, educator, civil-rights advocate, painter, author: Nellie Rathbone Bright was a woman of many talents.

Bright was born in Savannah, Ga., in 1898, the only child of the Rev. Richard Bright and Nellie Jones Bright. Rev. Bright had graduated from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York and was the first African American Episcopal priest in the Savannah Episcopal diocese. The Bright family had been close friends with a white woman named Caroline Rathbone, a social activist who remained close to the family for many years and acted as Nellie's godmother. Rev. Bright officiated at Rathbone's funeral, a headline-grabbing event. In the early 1900s, he accepted an appointment in Philadelphia and moved his family north.

Educated at a variety of schools in Philadelphia, Nellie Bright attended William Penn High and Normal Teacher Training School, where she received a grade-school teaching diploma with a special certificate in sewing. In 1919, she became a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where she joined the Gamma chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, Penn's first black sorority, which was formed in 1913. While at Penn, Bright pursued research at the Sorbonne and Oxford, and she studied art at the Berkshire School of Art in Massachusetts. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in English in 1923.

Bright became a teacher in the Philadelphia public schools and, in the late 1920s, co-founded the literary magazine Black Opals to encourage African American writers and the city's black literary community. In 1935, Bright accepted an appointment as a principal, an office she held at various schools in the city until 1952. Upon retiring, Bright taught in-service courses on African American history for teachers at the Fellowship House.

Throughout her life, Bright served on more than 15 civic boards and organizations that sought to improve schools and neighborhoods through open housing, health services, and cooperation among diverse members of society. Her efforts continued into her later years. In 1970, at the age of 72, Bright co-authored a children's book of social history, American - Red, White, Black, Yellow. She died in Philadelphia in February 1977.