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Listening To The Voices Of Black History

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The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 15, 2009

Otis Anthony has dedicated his life to improving conditions for blacks in Tampa. One of his many contributions is a collection of oral histories, articles and transcripts that he gathered in the 1970s and has since donated to the University of South Florida for preservation. The following are excerpts from some of his interviews.

On Law Enforcement

Excerpts from an interview with Tampa resident Jim Nicholson:

Tell us about the Tampa police?

These polices were muggers. Nine, 10 and 11 o'clock at night, they'd meet you on the streets, you going home. They'd say, "Come here, boy." You was always a boy to them.

You'd go up to them. They'd ask, "Where you going?"

You reply, "I'm going home, sir."

They'd ask, "Where did you work at today?"

You reply, "I ain't work nowhere today. I've been out looking for a job."

They'd say, "Get in the car."

Alright now, when you get in to go down there tomorrow morning, to go up there before the judge, do you know what you're charged with? You're charged with vagrancy. How could you be vagrant at 2 o'clock in the night when you going home. They were going to blow me away.

... Ain't but one Negro man that I knew of was here that tried to fight for himself, and that was ... Tootsie Murray. ... Yeah, you better send 20 polices if you was going to arrest him.

I remember when he was coming out of Shorty's and they arrested him and he hadn't did a thing. One told the other to go over there and call the wagon.

Old man Davis arrested him one Sunday evening right there by the cab stand, and he said to old man Davis, "Can I sit down?"

And old man Davis told him, "Yeah."

And he flipped old man Davis. Davis was a big man. He weighed over 200 pounds.
Tootsie used to do some crazy tricks.

When did you leave?

I did myself good by getting out of here. I don't care how or what kind of conditions my leg was in, but I bettered my condition by getting out of here. I left here in 1917. I was in and out. ... I came back here in 1943. During that time we could walk the street. Every time you go in the bar, you are jacked in the county jail.

Were there any black policemen during that time?

Ben Stafford, the first Negro officer, was here. Joe Robinson, the Negro, got killed back out here in these woods. He arrested a white man down at the Union Station, and him and some more policemen went back out here in these woods to hunt, then the car run over a hog, and nobody didn't get hurt but him. He got his neck broken. And long as he could talk, his wife didn't see him. That was in the hospital called Clara Frye. ... And long as he could talk, his wife couldn't see him. When he got to the place where he couldn't talk, then they let his wife go and see him. Don't you know damn well there's something wrong there. You mean to tell me there's four or five men in an automobile that run over a hog. Nobody get hurt but one. They ain't gonna let you, you can't talk to your wife.

On Racial Relations

Excerpts from an interview with Christine Saunders, who was born in Tampa in 1898:

Do you remember anything about blacks in the cigar factory?

Blacks in those days worked with the Latins, and they did not make a decision about color of man. 'Cause my daddy made those high-class cigars; he made good money. There were black women working there also.

Can you tell us about the flu epidemic they had here in 1918?

The blacks and the whites were both affected. I remember one night, you see my mother, we stays in a black and white neighborhood. Mr. Crawford had two boys, and I think we were the only blacks in that vicinity. And when the flu time came, my momma went to help plenty of them. My sister and I had to go some place to get the milk on Tampa Street. And they learned to love us. We go along just fine in those days.

Were you ever faced with prejudice among the whites?

No, although we had separate schools, we were never faced with it. The Latins, they just commenced to be something.

We couldn't ride in the front on the streetcars. There was this white lady in our neighborhood. She would come around and ask Mrs. Rogers Saunders' mother, "Let me take the girls such and such a place." She didn't care. She would fight for us.

She even tried to take us in the front of the streetcar. We came back and told momma that we didn't want to go off with Mrs. Fernandez anymore. She was from Oklahoma. She wanted us to sit with her.

I remember the morning we were on the car, and the conductor pulled the shade down. He said, "You know you can't sit in front with those niggers."

And she got highly insulted. These are some respectable people, and she told him there's coming a day when things are not going to be like this.

Keyword: Black History, to read a special report.

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