The Rev. Richard Bright was the first black Episcopal priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. He was born in 1866 in St. Thomas, then part of the Dutch West Indies. Bright was educated at St. Augustine Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the General Theological Seminary in New York, where he graduated in 1891. Bishop Henry C. Potter ordained Bright a deacon the same year and he passed examinations for the priesthood and could have been ordained later the same year, but he had not yet attained the minimum age for a priest of 25.

He was ordained a priest in St. Stephen’s in Savannah on June 10, 1892, by Bishop C.K. Nelson who noted he ordained him on behalf of the Bishop of New York where Bright was still canonically resident. In reporting on the occasion in its June 25, 1892 issue, the Church Advocate recorded, “Besides Bishop Nelson, there were present the Rev. Dr. Hartley, Rev. Messrs. Chas. H. Strong and Robb White ot Savannah, J. H. M. Pollard and G. F. Miller of Charleston, all ot whom took part in the services. The Rev. Chas H. Strong preached the sermon. ‘His charge to the newly ordained clergyman,’ said The Morning News, ‘was eloquent and powerful.’ The Rev. J. H. M. Pollard of St. Mark’s, Charleston, presented the candidate for ordination.”

His wife, Nellie, born in Louisville, Kentucky, was educated in Europe as a teacher after she was denied entrance to schools in the United States. Together, Richard and Nellie established the first private kindergarten and primary school for blacks in Georgia in 1892. In 1909, he accepted appointment by Bishop F. F. Reese as “Archdeacon for the colored Work of the Diocese.”

The Bright family’s friendship with Caroline Rathbone, a white woman, who later became his daughter’s godmother, appears in an article detailing Rathbone’s funeral, held in Evansville, Indiana. A black man’s officiating at a white woman’s funeral produced the column headline, “Colored Man to Take Part in Funeral at St. Paul’s Church” announced in The Evansville Courier, December 23, 1901. The article mentions Bright was once Rathbone’s Sunday School student in New York.

Bright was a respected writer of religious pamphlets, and he wrote for the Episcopal newspaper, Church Advocate. The Library of Congress has an entry dated March 2, 1900, registering “St. Stephen’s Catechism” prepared by Rev. Richard Bright in 1892. After serving the Diocese of Georgia for almost twenty years, the Bright moved his family from Savannah to accept an appointment in Philadelphia.

Nellie Rathbone Bright

The Bright’s daughter, Nellie Rathbone Bright, became famous in her own right. A student of Philadelphia public schools, Nellie earned her eighth grade graduation diploma in 1910 from Stanton Public School. She then obtained a diploma as a grade school teacher, with a special certificate in sewing, from William Penn High, Normal Teacher Training School, in 1916. Bright continued her education in 1919 when she entered the University of Pennsylvania, where she became a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English in 1923. In addition to her studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Bright also pursued research at the Sorbonne and Oxford, as well as art studies at the Berkshire School of Art in Berkshire Hills, Massachusetts.

Single all her life, Bright spent her entire career as a teacher, and then principal, in the Philadelphia school system. Her efforts as an educator, spanning more than thirty years, focused not only on the schools but also on the housing and neighborhoods in which her students lived. She also flourished as a writer for the literary magazine “Black Opals.”