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Civil Rights Leaders Are Rooted In Tampa's History
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Published: January 18, 2008
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Before and after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. riveted the nation's attention on civil rights, individual crusaders in cities across America took it upon themselves to shake open the locked doors of society's institutions.
In Tampa, a diverse collection of personalities, some low-key, some abrasive, pushed for integration of schools, public parks and lunch counters; and for equal treatment by the police, in hospitals, on city buses, on the job and in the courts.
As we honor the preacher who so eloquently made his case for fairness in the 1963 March on Washington, we look back at the some of the local luminaries, black and white, who advanced the civil rights movement in Tampa.
Robert Saunders, died at 81 in 2003. The Tampa native took over as field director of the Florida NAACP in 1952, after Ku Klux Klansmen murdered his predecessor, Harry T. Moore, and Moore's wife, Harriette. The mild-mannered yet insistent activist spent his career fighting for fair treatment by law enforcement and in schools, on the job and at the polls. At Macfarlane Park Elementary in 1961, his son, Robert Saunders Jr., now a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy, became the second black child in the county to integrate a white school.
Bob Gilder, died at 72 in 2003. The former president of the Tampa NAACP led black voter registration drives in the 1960s, helped contain the violence after a race riot in 1967 and helped defuse a threatened riot 20 years later. He also led the effort to desegregate Tampa General Hospital. A eulogist at his funeral said Gilder could "in five sentences either stir up a crowd or calm down a stirred-up crowd."
Delano Stewart, 72. The longtime Tampa lawyer worked with Gilder to register black voters. He represented Janie Bell Chambers in her unsuccessful suit against the city and the police officer who shot her son Martin Chambers, which sparked the 1967 riots. Stewart was inspired to become a lawyer as a 12-year-old when he met civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who became the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He was Hillsborough County's first black public defender.
Warren Dawson, 68. His work as lead counsel in a federal class action suit led to the desegregation of Hillsborough County schools. He also sued and negotiated to force the Tampa City Council and county commission to change from five-member boards elected at large to seven-member boards, with four members elected from districts. That enabled blacks to win elections.
Henry Bohler, died at 82 in 2007. A veteran of the famous Tuskegee Airmen, Bohler endured police harassment in 1962 — he was stopped five times one morning on the way to court — after his federal lawsuit forced the city to open parks and recreation centers to blacks.
Abe Brown, 80. The former Middleton High School football star became a beloved coach at Middleton, Blake and Jefferson high schools and dean of boys at Chamberlain High. His appeal for calm in 1989, after a black drug suspect died in police custody, helped prevent a riot. Brown later founded Abe Brown Prison Ministries.
A. Leon Lowry, died at 92 in 2005. The former pastor of Beulah Baptist Institutional Church in Tampa taught theology to Martin Luther King Jr. at Morehouse College in the 1940s. He helped organized sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters in Tampa in the late 1950s, campaigned to desegregate schools in the 1960s and became the first black member elected to the county school board. "He had calm determination," Mayor Pam Iorio said at his funeral. "His legacy will be great."
C. Blythe Andrews Sr., died at 75 in 1977. As editor of the Florida Sentinel Bulletin, he railed against the White Municipal Party in the 1940s and '50s. The party had effectively blocked blacks from voting in city primaries from 1910 until the primaries were abolished in 1953. Andrews wrote: "That thing is what keeps our streets unpaved, keeps us living in unsanitary conditions, prevents us from getting adequate playgrounds and park facilities. It is plain that the man who helps to elect somebody is going to be taken care of, and the other fellow will simply get the crumbs."
Essie Mae Reed, 78. A housekeeper who said she did not learn how to read until she was 40, she became the recognized voice for the poor in public housing as an activist for Central Park Village in the 1960s and '70s, calling attention to rat problems and lack of hot water heaters. She won a lawsuit that struck down the requirement of a filing fee for candidates for public office in Tampa.
Clara Frye, died at 65 in 1937. The nurse opened her home to blacks in 1908, not long after she moved to Tampa. Clara Frye Hospital operated privately, turning no one down for lack of money, until 1930, when the city of Tampa took it over. A wing at Tampa General Hospital is named for Frye.
Blanche Armwood, died at 49 in 1939. In the 1920s, she was supervisor of black schools in Hillsborough County. Armwood, who helped organize the Louisiana chapter of the NAACP, was an early secretary of the Tampa Urban League. Armwood High School is named for her.
Cody Fowler, died at 86 in 1978. Co-founder of the prestigious Fowler White law firm in Tampa, Fowler headed the Tampa Biracial Committee, which sought to smooth racial integration in Tampa. The white lawyer became popular in the black community when he represented a black woman who had been wrongly accused by police in an traffic accident with a white doctor. He also served on the first board of Progress Village, a community that offered blacks decent, affordable housing.
Henry Carley, 65. The outspoken head of the Tampa NAACP in the late 1980s helped the mother of a black drug suspect who died in police custody settle a wrongful death suit with the city. He fought for minority hiring in government and helped desegregate Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla. Bob Gilder said of him, "He has no problem telling it like it is in the pursuit of freedom and justice."
Arthenia Joyner, 64. An activist as a teenager, Joyner joined the sit-ins at Tampa lunch counters in 1960. She was jailed three times during civil rights protests in the 1960s. Inspired by Thurgood Marshall, she became a lawyer and pressed the cause in the courts. She is now a Florida state senator from Tampa.
Julian Lane, died at 82 in 1997. Mayor from 1959 to 1963, Lane appointed a Race Relations Study Committee during his first month in office and, unlike mayors of other Southern towns at the time, promoted a peaceful city reaction to the civil rights movement. He provided police protection for black students staging a sit-in at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter in 1960.
G.D. Rogers Sr., died at 66 in 1951. After opening a tailoring business in Bradenton, he started the Central Insurance Co. in Tampa. The company sold policies to black people who were rejected by white-owned companies. When black teachers threatened to strike for more pay, he offered them jobs. Rogers, a millionaire, also financed the work of civil rights activists.
William Reece Smith Jr., 82. A former president of the American Bar Association, he hired the first black lawyer to the prestigious Carlton Fields law firm. As Tampa city attorney in 1967, he also hired Warren Dawson, the first black assistant city attorney in the South.
Clarence Fort, 69. As head of the Tampa NAACP youth council, he led the sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter in 1960. He said he was scared to death at the time, "but if you believed in the idea of what you were doing, then you didn't have much choice." He is a retired Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy.
Sam Gibbons, 87. He sponsored a law as a state legislator that ended the city election primaries, which had blocked black voters from participating. As a U.S. congressman, he was a stalwart supporter of civil rights and helped found the Head Start program.
James Kynes, died at 60 in 1988. A former Florida attorney general, Kynes, as a vice president of Jim Walter Corp., was the first corporate executive in Tampa to hire a black lawyer — Charles Wilson — as general counsel of the company.
Perry C. Harvey Sr., died at 64 in 1972. As head of the Tampa longshoreman's union for 30 years, he brought in the powerful AFL-CIO, which improved wages of the Tampa dockworkers, many of them black. Sam Gibbons credited Harvey with coining the term "head start," for the popular preschool program designed to give poor children the tools they need to succeed in school.
Researchers Melanie Coon and Stephanie M. Pincus contributed to this report. Reporter Philip Morgan can be reached at (813) 259-7609 or pmorgan@tampatrib.com.
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