This About Us page will regularly introduce Community Forum members who have played leading roles in developing and carrying out the projects, service activities, and political campaigns of the Community Forum for Economic Justice.
This first report shares the important contributions of Oletha Jones, who has provided critical leadership for our efforts to support and strengthen local educational opportunities for the children of our community.
Since the early years of the Community Forum, we have built valuable relationships with children, their parents and their teachers, providing support for their concerns, communicating those concerns at School Board meetings, and forming valuable relationships with education activists from other cities. Some of these concerns led to extended campaigns, usually in collaboration with other local organizations. Oletha was central to all these efforts
Our two most extensive efforts were
1. Saving Public Education from the threat of Privatization, and
2. The Fight for Educational Equity, equal access to quality educational opportunity for all students and end the School to Prison Pipeline!
Oletha brought to these efforts the experience and knowledge that she inherited from her father, Reverend Robert Derrickson, President of Derrickson and Sons Construction Company, Mr. Derrickson was a well-established Black business owner in Mishawaka, Indiana who served as Co-Founder and President of Consolidated Negro Contractors (CNC) in the late 1960’s. Reverend Derrickson later became Founder and Pastor of the Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church until his death in 2005. CNC was the first and only organization of its kind to date in St. Joseph County. Its purpose was to build unity and solidarity amongst black business owners in South Bend, and its very existence challenged the status quo.
Oletha served one term as a SBCSC School Board Trustee from 2019-2022, and is currently serving her 16th year as the Education Chairperson for the South Bend NAACP. As Education Chairperson, she actively works to eliminatediscriminatory practices in public education, such as segregation; studies and investigates the disparities affecting minority groups in education; monitors the school system and board activity; strives to correct abuses or inequities wherever they are found; examines the effects of high-stakes test on minority students, works to eliminate policy that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline; and serves as a resource for educating the community on racial issues in education.
Oletha’s work for the NAACP is in conjunction with her work for the Community Forum for Economic Justice. As Education Chair, her role is to lead the local committee in strategic action to ensure that every student has the opportunity to be successful in education.
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Teresa Marcy was a dedicated activist committed to social justice. She was a long-time Secretary and Treasurer of the Community Forum for Economic Justice. She was also a volunteer and leader in the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program, which provides free tax preparation for low- and moderate-income individuals and families. She was the knowledgeable VITA tax expert from whom the other volunteers sought guidance. She was also kind, gentle, and generous. She will be greatly missed. Below is her Obituary.
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Teresa Nutting Marcy died in Evanston, Illinois, on January 17 [2026], after a brief illness and a decade-long struggle with dementia. She died surrounded by family.
Born in 1938 in South Bend, Indiana, Teresa was the eldest child of Willis Nutting and Eileen Barry Nutting. Willis Nutting was a history professor and one of the founders of the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Before her marriage, Eileen Nutting was a teacher and school superintendent. She later worked at the Holy Cross School of Nursing library.
Teresa and her two brothers grew up in a family that prioritized mutual care, self-sufficiency, service, Catholic faith, and intellectual discourse, and Teresa embodied all of those values and priorities in her own life. As a teen, she was active in Catholic groups and cross-community dialogues. She participated in 4H and was an accomplished seamstress, cook, and baker. She helped care for the animals on her family’s small farm at their home on Juniper Road.
Teresa was a brilliant and adventurous student. She graduated at the top of her class from St. Joseph High School in 1955, graduated summa cum laude with a history degree from St. Mary’s College in 1959, and then traveled to France on a Fullbright scholarship to study political science. After completing a graduate degree in Lyon, she moved to Aix-en-Provence to take a post as a teaching assistant for Gérard Marcy, a professor of economics in the law school. She soon met Professor Marcy’s son, Michel. Before long they were engaged, and the elder Marcy proudly took full credit for the happy union.
Teresa and Michel were married in 1964 at Christ the King Church in South Bend and then lived in France for several years, where Michel taught Greek and Latin. In 1968, now with a young son, they moved back to South Bend, where Michel took a position as a French professor at St. Mary’s College. Over the next few years the family grew, with the addition of two daughters. Teresa taught French at the YMCA, and she and Michel co-authored a best-selling French-English dictionary.
When her children were ready for school, Teresa became an academic affairs administrator, advisor, and political science lecturer at St. Mary’s College. Teresa worked at St. Mary’s for almost 30 years until her retirement in 2004. Her teaching and service to the college were recognized when she was awarded the Spes Unica Award in 1989 and the President’s Medal upon her retirement.
Teresa and Michel raised their children in a Francophone household. After Willis’s death, the family moved into the Juniper Road home to live with Eileen. The house was full of music, debate, books and friends. Teresa and Michel regularly opened their home to South Bend’s international community as well as the friends Teresa had made in childhood (their Three Kings/Fête des Rois gatherings were legendary). Teresa lived in the Juniper house until she moved into memory care in 2024.
Teresa and Michel were devout Catholics. When Robert Kerby, a Notre Dame professor and husband to Mary Kerby, Teresa’s lifelong friend, founded St. John of Damascus Melkite Church, they were among the first congregants. Later, Teresa attended the Church of Our Lady of Loretto.
Teresa was always active in politics, with a particular interest in social justice. In 1958 she served as a volunteer for the first successful Congressional campaign of John Brademas, who was her professor at Saint Mary’s. As a young mother, she took her children along as she knocked on doors to get the vote out for local candidates. She continued to attend rallies and protests after retiring.
In 1983, Michel was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s disease. Teresa was his devoted caregiver until his death in 1998. For years afterwards, Teresa served as administrator for an online group of Parkinson’s caregivers, even traveling abroad to meet some of the members in person.
In her retirement, Teresa traveled extensively to see family, and she organized trips to France with her friends and cousins, who were like sisters to her. She also fulfilled a dream of visiting Turkey. Teresa read widely and was a longtime member of a book club that famously read Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time at least twice, and she completed increasingly larger puzzles (6,000+ pieces). She also tended her two-acre property and the daffodils, lilac bushes, pine trees, raspberry bushes, and asparagus patch, which her father had planted decades earlier.
Teresa was a very active volunteer. She served on the board of the Community Forum for Economic Justice and provided free tax preparation services through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, eventually training many other volunteers. She also joined efforts to advocate for change within the Catholic Church through Call to Action.
Teresa was preceded in death by her husband Michel, her parents, Willis and Eileen Nutting, and her brother, Charles Nutting. She is survived by her brother, Theodore Nutting (Maureen) of Seattle, her three children, John Marcy (Judy Christy) of Naples, FL, Hélène Marcy (Reed Solomon) of Mansfield, CT, and Claire Marcy (Andrew Micheli) of Evanston, IL, and her five grandchildren, Amanda Marcy, Michael Marcy, Marika Solomon Marcy, Willis Solomon Marcy and Pascale Micheli-Marcy.
A funeral mass will be celebrated on Saturday, April 11 at 11am ET at the Church of Our Lady of Loretto on the campus of St. Mary’s College, with a reception to follow. [This is being rescheduled.]
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that donations be made to the Food Bank of Northern Indiana.