CHAPTER 5 CONTINUED. . .

The Life Of Mrs. Louise Macon

My name is Louise Macon. I was born in a little town in the northwest part of Florida in Gadsen County, in Qunicy, the county seat. It was known for its long leaf tobacco. Primarily the mode of existence was farming and raising tobacco. Tobacco was the main survival. There were few Blacks who owned businesses. However there were many who lived on the farms.

I do not know much about Qunicy because I left there when I was quite a young lady and went to Baldwin Haven school in Jacksonville in the fifth grade. I returned home two summers after that. I left Baldwin Haven after finishing eighth grade. In 1930, St. Petersburg became home for me. i came here with my parents. This was their winter headquarters.

I began Gibbs, the first black high school that St. Petersburg had for Negroes, in the second semester of 1930. I completed the eleventh grade, married, and became a wife to Dotry Macon. Not because I was a mother but because I wanted to.

Life has been very good to me as a black. I never had any problems as far as segregation is concerned.

One may ask, how is it possible for an African American woman born and raised in segregated South to have a good life. When the complexities of Mrs. Macon's life are examined, one finds a self assured independently thinking woman whose intelligence, creativity and a sense of belonging opened doors for her while they remained closed to many other Negroes. Although, she disapproves of the practice, she acknowledges that the doors of opportunities were cracked for her because of her fair skinned complexion.

Mrs. Macon is highly respected in St. Petersburg. On several occasions other informants suggested that I interview her. She is esteemed because she transcended racial boundaries. Her skills as an effective organizer of many social events which are sponsored by the Federation of Women clubs also bring her recognition. Almost simultaneously while discussing her intellect, and social events, people mention her meticulous and fashionable persona. Also, Mrs. Macon is admired because she was one of the few home owners who successfully challenged the city when they offered to buy her home for the Florida Suncoast Dome parking lot. Mrs. Macon is a symbol of a woman who does not bow.

Her approach toward life perhaps, was influenced by her mother. She describes her mother as follows:

She was sort of independent, well groomed and only retired at age 79. She wasn't book learned but was a person of mother-wit, common knowledge and l.Q. Remembrance was no problem. Everybody respected Mrs. Annie Woods. They called her Mrs. A. W.

Mrs. Macon was raised in a somewhat middle-class home. Although her parents were not formally educated, their jobs were positions of status in the Negro community during the segregation. Her mother worked for several years as a parlor maid at the Soreno Hotel and a maid for the hired help of the Vinoy Hotel. Her father was second head bellman for the Soreno Hotel. He supervised a crew of bellmen. "That was a sort of gracious living," explains Mrs. Macon. "Working in the hotel was better than doing menial labor, cleaning house and keeping the whites' children," she explains. "Their salaries were small but their tips gave them very good incomes. Caucasians lived in a different style than they do now. Most of the guests were Northerners who believed in graciously tipping." Therefore, her parents could afford to send her to a private boarding school during her junior high years.

To appreciate Mrs. Macon's ability to find meaning and purpose in her life despite race, one should understand the community in which she was reared. She became a woman during a time when the division of labor between Negroes and whites was sharply drawn. "Our young men worked as busboys and carried the trays for whites. The girls were the coffee and tea pourers and they relied on tips as their salaries. A uniform was a passport into downtown for African Americans. "Without your uniform on, you (Negroes) mostly entered all back doors." With a uniform it was assumed that Negroes were either somebody's personal maid or one of the employees. African American women were not permitted to try on clothes and they were required to cover their heads with little caps before placing a hat on their heads. "Blacks just did not go into independent stores. We knew where we were wanted and where we would get our feelings hurt by being ignored or telling you to get out . . . . "Blacks did not go into restaurants and bars unless they worked there," she reminisces.

To counter these insults and to gain control over their lives, blacks had their own commercial districts. "We had Second Avenue, South." Doctors Leggett and Ponder located their offices there. Restaurants, the Elks club, pool rooms, grocery stores, beauty parlors, barber shops, pressing clubs and churches could be found along that avenue. However, "Twenty-Second Avenue was our main black avenue. When blacks got dressed, they would promenade down the street." She believes that until integration and the riots, blacks were proud of their heritage.

She recalls Sunday-night concerts of Methodist songs and Negro spirituals held at McCabe Methodist church during the thirties. Attending these concerts meant that one had to arrive early to get a place in the church's four hundred-seat auditorium. The church was often filled to capacity, suggests Mrs. Macon. McCabe became a tourist mecca. It was not unusual for $600 to be raised during each event. "These were beautiful concerts," she remembers.

Protected by the gracious lifestyle of her family, educated in private schools and nurtured in a segregated black community, Mrs. Macon uncompromisingly entered the white world of St. Petersburg. When she began her first job in 1954 at the Ponce DeLeon Hotel she assisted in readying the hotel for its winter residents. This job included cleaning windows and lattice doors. When that job was completed the housekeeper instructed her and the rest of the cleaning crew that they would also clean rugs. "I knew that was not my cup of tea," says Mrs. Macon. She told the housekeeper, 'I would like to give my best in whatever I do but this is not for me.' That day she was given a task of ironing silk draperies. The next day the housekeeper told her, 'I have a job for you. I see that you are above this.' She was asked to become the maid for the owner of one of the most fashionable shops in St. Petersburg. As an aside, she says to me, "I never scrubbed floors and I don't intend to start."

Mrs. Macon's sense of self and a keen intellect have help to create opportunities. After working for John Baldwin for two years as a maid, she became the store's stock clerk. She recounts the situation leading to her new status as follows:

I would always hang around the stock room with Reba Pier. One day she and Mr. Baldwin didn't see eye to eye and she quit. Having hung around in the stock room, I knew the code and keystoning, which is doubling the prices and omitting fifty cents or seventy-five cents.

Being in a predicament, the owner said, "'Louise, I see that you are quite interested in the stock room. Do you think you can handle it?' She told him, 'I believe that I can.' I remained there 8 years, with quite a bit of respect. . . This was before integration," she recollects.

"It is strange how things can change for you," she muses. Not only did she become a stock clerk despite the racial customs of that era, she also became an effective salesperson in the business. She recalls that the store traditionally had an annual sale. A twenty- dollar-bonus would be awarded the person with the highest amount of sales and ten dollars were given to the sales person who sold the most pieces. "So the first day of our annual sale, I walked away with both prizes," she reveals. Again, she impresses on me that was long before integration. She infers that Mr. Baldwin apologetically told the other salespersons, 'I can't help it; Louise has taken both.'

Mrs. Macon attributes her success to knowing the stock, and telephoning hotel customers and encouraging them to buy their Christmas gifts during the sale. Also, having detailed knowledge of the stock permitted her to make informed suggestions to the customers.

She cautions me not to assume that her pioneering days at Baldwin occurred because she was any better than other black women. She explains,

I tell you there were girls who qualified for better jobs. It is sad to say how Whites once looked at color and the texture of hair and decided who they wanted. Other girls were hired and they had the knowledge but they never made it to the front. That is true. I think for a long time that is what happened in my case at Baldwin's. I was one of the few who did not suffer as much as some.

She also recognizes that her skills were valuable to Baldwin. "Once whites see that you are an asset rather than a liability, they are willing to change the rules," she suggests. She was not trapped in an illusion that everything was fine because she was treated fairly. She was the only black to work for Baldwin as a salesperson until the 1980s. When the store closed in 1992, she remained one of two African Americans sales persons who ever worked at Baldwin's. Such glaring statistics led Mrs. Macon to conclude that a need for her abilities led to her opportunities at Baldwin's.

When faced with a family crisis, she discovered how much Mr. Baldwin were concerned about her interests. She recounts after her husband died in January, her oldest daughter became terminally ill. In March, she went to Mr. Baldwin and explained that she was going take time off to care for her daughter. He responded, 'Can you afford to?' She indignantly told him, 'Afford to? It is what I want to do. Whether I can afford it, I will do it. No one who wants to eat starves. I have never seen anyone starve.' "I said, 'I am sorry but this is the way it is.' I took off . . . and I never returned. Of course that hit him hard because he was losing a stock clerk." Within four months her husband and her thirty yearold daughter who was a mother of four children, had died. She also had shown the 'Prince of Fashion' that her responsibilities to her family were paramount.

After taking a year off, she returned to retailing. She worked at various other fashionable dress shops. Again, she refused to stay in the station that had been prescribed by the racial customs. She worked for Florence Jones' dress shop. Although, Jones employed six blacks, they all worked in the stock room. Mrs. Macon worked as a stock clerk. However, while there she found creative ways to apply her knowledge and to move to the front of the store. She recollects, "that store had a girl who for thirty years did the shop-window displays. However, "she never coordinated things." For example, she did not show how a suit could be worn with a variety of blouses, assesses Mrs. Macon. Therefore, she suggested ideas to the owner about the display windows.

Initially, the owner permitted her to arrange the display two or three times. "They got so much rave about the window until I became the window decorator." Ten dollars more was added to my weekly salary," beams Mrs. Macon. Throughout her twelve years at the shop, she recommended other ways to improve the services to the shop's clientele. "Totally, all over, I was sort of an asset to her She treated us all as human beings," recalled Mrs Macon.

Although, Mrs. Macon retired, her self-assured and assertive approach has continued in her relationship with the city of St. Petersburg. She has challenged its planners not to type cast her world and define her mace in it. As always, she determines her needs.

The city of St. Petersburg planned to relocate Mrs. Macon and her neighbors in order to expand parking spaces for the Florida Suncoast Dome. Although a home owner and taxpayer in the city of St. Petersburg for more than forty years, she was not aware that her home was slated for demolition until the Laurel Park housing complex was sold, she disclosed. "I first knew that I was going to be dislocated . . . when we were notified by letter," she describes. The city informed her and her neighbors that they were going to acquire their properties. "We had no choice; they just said you have to move," reported Mrs. Macon. Then they offered to pay her $39,000 for her home of 34 years that included four bedrooms, two baths, and a two story apartment in the back.

"I am the one person who fought against their bids," she remarks. The city proposed to pay her $48,000 for her land. She refused. The city later suggested $55,000. Again she felt that they did not offer her a fair price for her homes. She told Elijah Gosier, a newspaper reporter, "The city did me a grave injustice when they put Interstate -275 in." Gosier (1990:3) writes, "The highway construction closed an alley behind her property, making it accessible only by a circuitous route." Closing that alley reduced her rental income from the apartment behind her house. The garage was made useless, therefore she had to lower rent. She lost approximately $5,000 in lost rental income over the past years (Gosier 1990:3). Given this historical experience, she was not willing to compromise and allow the city to take her land without adequately compensation. After the article appeared Mrs. Macon and the city negotiated a sum that she could accept.

Mrs. Macon suggested that city is disrupting her life. She described her home as livable and filled with all the conveniences that she needs. Fifteen years ago, she paid off her mortgage. Therefore, her monthly expenses are her utilities. She reminded me, "When you are 77 you don't need to think of the upkeep of a place . . . I feel secure where I am, only because I have lived here. "We (speaking of her neighbors) have a habit of calling each other every day. "But it is a sad plight when you think of breaking up housekeeping," she concluded.

Mrs. Macon views the acquisition of her property by the city is part of a long term plan by the city. She traces historical evidence for her assessments. The city forced her church, McCabe Methodist, to move from Ninth Street, and Second Avenue, South, she informs me. "Right on the corner, there was Davis Elementary school, our church and a store front." Behind the church there were a few private homes. The city wanted to purchase the land to build Graham Park, an apartment complex for senior citizens. To pressure the church to relocate, the city banned parking on Ninth Street and restricted the church parking to two blocks during funerals, believes Mrs. Macon. She suggested that the relocation of the Gas Plant, the deterioration of the Laurel Park, splitting of the black community with the interstate reveal a scheme to remove blacks from the downtown area. However, she acknowledged that many people who relocated from Gas Plant benefitted. She also recalled that many inhabitants of the beautiful homes destroyed by the Interstate, were likely to have remained in the community. Instead they relocated to the suburbs to find comparable homes after theirs were demolished.

"So much beauty of the black community was destroyed," laments Mrs. Macon. "We (the black community) have nothing. I have been here 61 years, she said. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is the only thing that blacks have fought to protect she determines. First Institutional Baptist church was one of the structures that should have been saved she avers. It was known for its architectural design and uniqueness. It was called the Shell Dash church because it was built with sea shells by Mr. Calhoun, a black contractor. "Blacks have not really protested hard enough. We do a lot of talking. They (the city) destroy what they want," concludes Mrs. Macon.

Mrs. Macon faces life with an appreciation of her place in the universe. She reasons that it is not subordinate to the customs of race and power. However, she realizes that her life has been a little more protected than the average African American because of the peculiar circumstances of race. Yet she is aware of the force of race in her collective life as a black person. Therefore, when she acknowledges that "life had been good to me as a black," her statement implies that a double standard exists.

Historical Postscript

March 30, 1993, the city of St. Petersburg demolished Mrs. Macon's home. Thirty-seven years of memories of a family and a neighborhood were reduced to rubble within a matter of hours. At age eighty, she was driven from the home where she and her husband had raised their five children to make way for a parking lot for sports fans.