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Woman Who Filed Desegregation Lawsuit In Polk County Dies

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 11, 2008

The woman whose 1963 federal lawsuit spurred the desegregation of Polk County schools has died.

Althea Mills of Winter Haven died Friday. She was 84.

Every day in the 1960s, her son Herman walked past the white high school in Winter Haven to reach his segregated black school, said longtime friend Lemuel L. Geathers, who knew Mills since elementary school in the late 1930s.

In 1963 she filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of Polk County's segregated school system.

She was active in the NAACP and the civil rights movement in the 1960s, not an easy stance to take 40 years ago in Polk County, said Geathers, Winter Haven's first black mayor.

"She was dedicated and had definite beliefs about what was wrong with the system," he said.

The county's black schools were inferior, he said.

A former teacher, he saw school district workers take books from the white high school's library to the black school when it was time for accreditation visits. The books were returned the next day.

"That's the way it was in those days," he said.

Though the lawsuit was successful, it was too late for her son to attend the white high school. The school district's tactic was to delay.

"We drug our feet any way we could," said C.A. Boswell, a former school board attorney who replaced his father.

Boswell took over the case as lead attorney when his father retired as school board attorney but was involved with it from the beginning.

Because of the lawsuit, a federal judge maintained jurisdiction over the school board's attendance zone decisions for years. Any major change in school zones had to be approved by the federal court, Boswell said.

The suit by Mills was necessary for desegregation in Polk County schools to move forward.

"I do not think Polk County at that time on its own would have made a decision to desegregate," Boswell said.

During the years of the lawsuit, Boswell said he got to know Mills.

"She was a perfectly delightful person," he said.

It wasn't until 2000 that a federal judge dismissed the suit but retained jurisdiction over an agreement among the school system, U.S. Justice Department and the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, which represented Mills in the case.

That ruling meant the school district did not need court approval for changes in attendance zones as long as they don't create segregation.

Last month the historic association of the Pughsville neighborhood where Mills grew up honored her at the association's annual reunion.

Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (813) 259-7731 or njohnson@tampatrib.com.

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