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Proctor Bright: A life lived with courage

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RIDGELAND -- Proctor Bright was everything in life he was not supposed to be.

He was born poor and black in the Deep South, where Jim Crow society said he would amount to nothing. But his moral, intellectual and entrepreneurial fiber proved that to be a lie.

Then came the big headline two weeks ago: "86-year-old Ridgeland man brutally slain in home."

How could it be? This was the man who, despite meager means, last year co-founded what he called the He Whispered a Dream Foundation to distribute the Extreme Teen version of the Bible to children, some of them in jail.

As 500 people took every seat at Bright's funeral and spilled into the yard, a suspect in his murder sat behind bars.

It was a 15-year-old boy.

We can deal with these ironies as Bright approached his life ... by faith, one step at a time, no matter how hard, no matter how cruel.

He felt the slurs and indignation of racism, yet rose above it to have a day named for him in Ridgeland. He was grand marshal of a parade. He played guitar and sang in the Ridgeland Nursing Center every week. He took meals to the elderly and took young people fishing. He was a church deacon. Friends say they recall no harsh words said about him, and vice versa, which is a miracle for a long life in a small town.

BRONZE AND BLACK

Life's circumstances forced Bright out of school at age 13, but under a different scenario he could've been an engineer. He rose from shop boy to a master mechanic who could fix anything. In World War II, he was promoted to sergeant and called "Doctor Proctor" when he alone was able to repair generators and freezers his segregated company desperately needed in the sweltering Pacific.

He survived the war and came home to the petite bride he'd met at a church picnic, and their four-room home with Sears catalog pages glued over the cracks. It had no bathroom, running water or stove, and he wanted something better for Dora and their family, which was growing into four girls and an adopted nephew.

That's when Bright discovered that banks throughout the Lowcountry -- and even a federal office in Savannah -- could deny him the privileges of the GI Bill he'd earned by risking his life for the land of the free. He had a Bronze Star, but he couldn't get a loan for the great American dream because he was black.

Bright didn't get bitter. He got busy. He'd make that house himself. He started by engineering and building a sawmill. He'd never worked at a sawmill or even seen one. But he built one over a period of three years from parts that were mostly donated or bartered.

This all happened after working long days at a tractor repair shop. Every spare nickel went into making the dream come true. Bright was given a 10-year-old 1931 Model A Ford as junk and he drove it 15 years. He and Dora grew what they ate. Dora made all their clothes, sewing nice blouses for the girls from the good parts of their father's worn-out shirts.

DEBT-FREE DREAMS

When the sawmill finally was ready, Bright was given 13 pines. He knew nothing about cutting giant trees. But he and his helpers did it. They sawed and stacked the wood after work, then built the house on Saturdays. He traded lumber for things like windows. He had donated labor from family and friends whose skills were counted on to build many Lowcountry mansions.

Bright started the project with $278 to his name, and on the happy night they moved into the 900-square-foot home where he would be killed, the money he laid on his dresser added up to $278.

Next came his second dream. He built his own garage across the street. When Bright died, it was one of the longest-running black-owned businesses in Jasper County, and he was still fixing cars.

Then he built a house for his mother, and one for his in-laws -- Dora's share-cropping aunt and uncle who raised her on an old plantation.

He also built an apartment as an investment.

When all that was done, he was 36 years old and debt-free.

Dora opened an upholstery business and a bakery, and got a florist's certificate. So did he. And he taught shop at a local high school, served on the hospital board and became a man of letters.

URGING UNDERSTANDING

It's ironic that without his horrendous death, Bright's lessons for life could have been overlooked.

At his funeral, Bright's daughter urged compassion for the murder suspect's family.

"I cannot harbor any hatred," Mary Ann Bright told me later. "I'm not going to give (his murderer) my life. He's not going to get another inch of Bright property, but hatred will not allow God to use us as the Christians he wants us to be."

She said her father would tell her to let the Lord handle it.

Her father's primary goal was to make sure children "had a fighting chance to know the Lord," Mary said. He was married 52 years to Dora, and he was bothered by what he saw as a breakdown in modern families.

That's why he bid $300 for an old school bus, painted it, fixed it up and drove it to Sunday school at his own expense, picking up children all along the way. It's why he wanted children whose parents may not take them to church to have Bibles.

WHISTLE FOR THE WIND

Mary is glad now that she encouraged her father to write down the stories of his extraordinary life. She edited them from his stacks of legal pads and published a collection called "Whistle for the Wind."

The name comes from an old Lowcountry farmers' tale. They needed the wind to help separate grain from the chaff, and on still days they'd whistle for the wind and God always looked after them.

"It is my prayer that you will find seeds of faith, hope and encouragement on these pages," Proctor Bright wrote. "Be strengthened for your journey. Whistle for the wind! My wind and scripture of faith that calms my fears and gives me the courage to run this race:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Isaiah 43:1-3.

"My friend, be blessed!"

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