Black history comes alive

A twice-monthly walking tour of downtown Tampa on Friday focused on the city's rich black history.

Walkers heard a poem about freedom from the city's first poet laureate, toured a historic black boarding house and stood outside a former Woolworth's store where sit-ins occurred during segregation.

Friday's event, held in honor of Black History Month, was sponsored by the Tampa Downtown Partnership and drew about 100 walkers.

The one-hour tour started at Madison and Franklin streets and traveled to Joe Chillura Courthouse Square.

There civic activist Ron Weaver told walkers that in 1855 the area that became Hillsborough and Pinellas counties had 2,251 residents, including 736 slaves and six free blacks.

James Tokley, the city's first poet laureate, then read the walkers a poem called "Freedom."

Tokley has composed for a time capsule celebrating the city's centennial and written for previous Mayors Sandy Freedman and Dick Greco. He has written books such as "Oh, St. Regent," the epic poem "Genesis: The History of the African Upon the Face of the Earth," and "The Rape of Kuwait," which was considered for a 1994 Pulitzer Prize.

After Tokley's reading, the tour headed along Zack Street to the historic Jackson House. During segregation, it sheltered celebrities, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and musical legends Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, James Brown and Count Basie.

The 1901 building was one of a handful that welcomed blacks during segregation. Entertainers stayed there when they performed at nightclubs in the heyday of Central Avenue, the city's black commercial district.

The 24-room boardinghouse, at 851 E. Zack St., is on the state's Black Heritage Trail and on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jackson House owner Willie Robinson told walkers Friday that he believes construction of the house began in 1865.

"This house was built before electricity," he said. "So you know it goes back."

Jackson's mother was born in the home in November 1916. She died in the same room in 2006.

Jackson's father cut the hair of Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington, he said.

In the living room, Jackson said, Fitzgerald came up with the classic song "A Tisket, A Tasket."

Friday's tour concluded at 801-807 N. Franklin St., which is the former site of a F.W. Woolworth store.

The site was the setting of a Feb. 29, 1960, civil rights sit-in.

Soon afterward, not only was the lunch counter no longer segregated, but signs barring blacks from using whites-only restrooms and water fountains also came down.

"The sit-in brought us a lot further along in that particular decade and time," civic activist Myron Jackson said.

While Friday's walking tour provided 100 attendees a bit of exercise, Weaver said that it served a more important purpose.

"It provided exercises of mind and soul and heart," Weaver said. "The spirit of this community is huge."

The downtown partnership has offered free, twice-monthly walking tours for four years. Tours run from October through May.

Other tours this season will show walkers local sculptures, the Riverwalk and inside the renovated Tampa Bay Times Forum.

For tour information go to www.dothelocalmotiontampabay.com or call the Tampa Downtown Partnership at (813) 221-3686.