Richard Bright had no ties to Ohio, but he was a dedicated Cleveland Guardians fan.

He joined the fan base after the Guardians, then called the Indians, became the first American League baseball team to sign a Black player, Larry Doby, in 1947.

“They had Rich’s undying support and respect because they did the right thing,” said John Lewis, a longtime friend and neighbor.

‘Doing the right thing’ was the basis of Bright’s outlook on life, especially concerning race relations, loved ones said. As a Democratic socialist, Bright was a proponent of integration and an advocate for union rights. He was a white man but obtained his doctoral degree from Howard University and spent the majority of his career teaching political science at Coppin State University, both historically Black institutions.

He should be remembered as “the man that loved everyone unconditionally — the person who gave his all to teach his students, to treat everyone right, to work hard, to be true to yourself,” said Gladys Novak, who lived with the Bright family while she attended college and considers him a second father.

Bright, a dedicated professor who promoted social justice and equality, died Jan. 14 in his sleep. He was 89.

Bright was born in Philadelphia on April 30, 1935, to Mary and Cooper Bright. He spent his early childhood on the Jersey Shore before his father’s military career prompted the family to move around the country.

The frequent moves, coupled with undiagnosed dyslexia, made school difficult. He dropped out of high school at 17 and enlisted in the Navy, serving as a sonar operator on a submarine during the Korean War. When he finished the tour, he earned his GED and started working on a journalism degree at Rutgers University.

His father was working at the Pentagon at the time, and Bright would come home to Arlington, Virginia, to visit during the summer. It just so happened that Sally Sira, a student at Boston University, lived in the same apartment complex with her parents.

They also worked the same summer job and would chat on the bus there — so it was no surprise when they got engaged at Christmas just a few months after meeting.

They married in 1960 and moved to Cambridge, where Bright started as a sports reporter for the Cambridge Banner. Maryland schools were supposed to legally desegregated, but many hadn’t, and Bright was adamant about covering sports at predominantly Black schools, said his wife, now Sally Bright.

At one point, an editor approached Bright and told him that he was writing too much about Black communities, his wife recalled. Bright asked the editor if subscriptions had gone up. The editor conceded they had, and Bright told him that was probably because the parents of Black students were now buying the paper.

“His family was always like that — they just welcomed everybody into their homes,” Sally Bright said. “He just didn’t think it was right. … He saw the effects of segregation. It just didn’t make sense.”

Bright went on to work for newspapers in Pennsylvania and New York before returning to school in 1965. He earned his master’s degree in political science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and developed an interest in Canadian politics. He would later teach classes on the subject at Coppin State and bring students on an annual field trip to Ottawa.

He then decided to obtain his doctorate in political science at Howard University. He was in D.C. when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. “It was just a lot of conflict, and he was in the middle of it,” his wife said. “He learned a lot from it.”

After graduating, the couple moved to Ellicott City, and Bright started working as a political science professor at Coppin State. He also became the faculty’s union representative, believing that unions give workers a voice. Around the same time, his wife gave birth to their only child, April.

He loved Coppin State, but his union work put him at odds with some administrators, as did his decision to advise students through a school boycott, his wife said.

Bright felt the school wasn’t treating him fairly. He and another non-Black professor sued the university in 1977, alleging they had been denied promotions and raises because of their race, court records show.

An appellate court later determined the school had not racially discriminated against the professors. It did find, however, that the university may have denied promotions because of their involvement in the boycott, a violation of First Amendment rights. Bright eventually received a cash settlement from the school, his wife said.

Bright worked at Coppin State until he retired in 2000. He mentored other professors, including Pat May, who said Bright was a “sounding board” who would always “be very honest and frank.” He also taught inmates in the Maryland prison system.

He was “completely in service of his students,” said his daughter, April Baer. She thinks he was trying to be the teacher he never had when he was struggling academically.

“My biggest memory of my dad’s teaching years was our dinners being constantly interrupted by students calling us, because that was who he was,” Baer said. “Until the week he died, he was getting calls from former students.”

After retirement, Bright and his wife moved to a family farm outside of Cambridge before returning to Howard County in 2022. Bright was passionate about historic preservation, and while in Cambridge, he worked to preserve the Handsell House Museum.

Bright still enjoyed baseball games, and he inspired his two grandsons, Cooper and Nate, to pick up the sport. He and Bill Barry, a longtime friend, would always attend Guardians games when they played the Orioles.

“I will always remember sitting at Camden Yards with him, filling out the box score, talking about the game, talking about life while the game goes on, and complaining about all the noise,” Barry said.

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