[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5364]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   IN MEMORIAM: MRS. NOLA BRIGHT, IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT, WESTSIDE 
                              BRANCH NAACP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, today is equal pay day for women. 
I take this time to stop and pay tribute to a woman who spent 
practically all of her adult life fighting in behalf of women, 
minorities and any others whom she felt may have been oppressed and at 
the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, Mrs. Nola Bright, immediate 
past president of the Westside Branch NAACP.
  Nola Bright was born and reared in the city of Chicago and spent the 
major portion of her life living in, defending and working to improve 
what is commonly and affectionately known as the West Side of Chicago, 
in the Lawndale community.
  Nola Bright was a family-oriented person. She grew up in a warm 
family, married John Bright at an early age, and had four children. She 
was a fiercely dedicated mother and grandmother and was indeed a 
surrogate mother, mentor and role model for many younger men, women and 
children who looked to her for guidance and direction.
  Nola Bright became a school and community activist at an early age. 
As she saw her children off to school, she started to work with the 
Chicago Youth Centers as a way of making sure that children had after-
school recreation and leisure-time activities. Mrs. Bright came into 
her own during the mid-1960s which was a period of great civil unrest, 
social change and the establishment of new structures. She was 
intimately immersed in all of these activities and often rose to 
leadership status within the groups with whom she worked.
  She worked most directly with the Chicago Youth Centers, Better Boys 
Foundation, District 8 Education Council, Greater Lawndale Conservation 
Commission, Sears, YMCA, Martin Luther King Neighborhood Health Center, 
Lawndale Urban Progress Center and the Model Cities Program.
  Nola Bright was a champion of the underdog and spent much of her life 
working with and on behalf of individuals and causes often considered 
to be the least popular. Rarely did Nola Bright separate her 
compensated work from her causes. You generally could not distinguish 
between her job and her volunteer activity. Over the years, she held a 
variety of jobs, Chicago Youth Centers, Martin Luther King Neighborhood 
Health Center, Westside Association for Community Action's Sickle Cell 
Project. She even worked for me when I was a member of the Chicago City 
Council and president pro tem. Finally, she worked for Habilitative 
Systems Social Service Agency from which she retired.
  For the past 20 years or more of her life, Nola Bright was totally 
committed to keeping the Westside Branch of the NAACP alive and 
functioning. She served as president, secretary, treasurer, membership 
chairman and held every other office. She performed any and all tasks 
that she could not get someone else to do. Nola Bright was stubbornly 
principled and would much rather give out than give in. In actuality, 
she gave her life to the service of others.
  She will be memorialized at the Carey Tercentenary AME Church on 
Saturday, April 6, 2001, 10 a.m., still looking for equal pay, for 
equal justice and equal opportunity.

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