CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

"Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety."
Proverbs 1 1 : 14

Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Bibliography Appendix 1 Timeline

How has life for African Americans in St. Petersburg changed during past seventy years? What has alienated the youth from the traditional values of their community? What role has the dialectics of underdevelopment and development played in shaping the lives of African American youths? Persistent violence among African American youths, their disproportionate school suspensions and juvenile incarceration motivated these questions and this dissertation. This section offers concluding insights concerning the historical continuities and discontinuities confronting African Americans in St. Petersburg.

Racism and tourism have been persistent factors in St. Petersburg. Although, as social conditions changed, the city also altered its strategies to extract profits from tourists and to restrict African American contact with them. After the 1964 Civil Rights act dismantled the legal segregation of African Americans, the city of St. Petersburg could no longer pass blatantly racist resolutions. Therefore, city officials relied on subtle policies such as urban redevelopment schemes and interstate highways to discriminate against African Americans and attract tourists. Combined with hostile desegregation, the city either altered, destroyed, or divided the African American community to develop its tourist economy. Social networks and relations among African Americans were sacrificed.

City resolutions such of those of 1931 and 1941 segregated the African American community by law. Ostensibly, these laws created an isolated but distinct community ascribed by racism. Under these conditions, black institutions arose. African Americans bought land and established Mercy, a hospital that was staffed by black nurses and doctors. Gibbs High and Jordan Park elementary schools were founded. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church, Melrose Park Club House, Manhattan Casino and other social institutions were developed to strengthen bonds among the members of the community. African American ownership of grocery stores, beauty salons, restaurants and cleaners also helped to reinforce feeling of separateness and belonging.

The isolation was so complete that it was possible to reside in the community without having any direct knowledge of the white community. A 70 year-old church secretary and a 35 year-old music therapist reported that while growing up, they had no significant contact with whites. The church secretary, explained that she was eighteen years old the first time she went downtown. Prior to that day, she suggests, she did not have a reason to leave her community. The products she needed could be purchased within the community. Gary Gordon, although several generations younger than the secretary recalled that his contact with whites was delayed until he went to graduate school. His undergraduate years were spent at Morehouse college, an all-black men's college. Hence if one did not work outside of the black community, it was possible to attend church, school, shop and socialize without leaving the confines of the African American community.

Separate residential and business districts for African Americans were so rigidly enforced by the city of St. Petersburg, that the African American community consisted of persons of various economic and professional classes. Therefore, lawyers, doctors, teachers, maids, ministers, janitors and woodsellers lived in the same neighborhoods and often attended the same churches and social clubs and together schooled and reared their children. Even entertainers such as Cab Calloway, who came to St. Petersburg solely to entertain white audiences had to sleep in the black neighborhoods. The only persons of color exempted to live outside of the prescribed perimeters of the Negro community were servants. Otherwise, the city kept all Negroes within said territorial limits of the 1931 city charter.

Although segregation was designed to limit the capacity of African Americans, it fostered a tightly knit community. These bonds reinforced the cultural expectations of their children and the collective responsibility of individuals to instill these values. Mrs. Edna Williams explained, "You (a child) couldn't hide anything because everybody communicated." Mothers and teachers were especially close because they knew each other. Often they lived in the same neighborhood, suggested Williams. Ernest Fillyau, city councilman, remembered that Deacon Brown, a janitor for Gibbs High would remind him often when he strayed from his training, to respect his family's name. Therefore, from the degradation of segregation, came a communal network for child rearing.

For children, the social implications of living in a segregated community cannot be understated, especially when being black and African carry a stigma of inferiority. This insular community reduced the impact of direct racism on the lives of African American youngsters. For example, racial stereotypes had less meaning when African American youths daily observed members of their community who administered schools, taught chemistry, mathematics and mingled with world renowned individuals. For example, Mrs. Fannye Ponder, a social studies teacher at Gibbs, wife of the first African American doctor in St. Petersburg and socialite, was a close confidant of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McCleod Bethune. Her friendship with these women led them to visit Gibbs and speak to the students. Likewise, Langston Hughes, a friend of Miss Olive B. McLin, chair of Gibbs' English department for forty years, lectured there. These visits visually demonstrated to the students the outstanding capacities of some members of their community.

During segregation, Gibbs was a medium whereby African Americans were enculturated in their native epistemology and acculturated in the world view of the mainstream society. Bob Perry, president of Gibbs High class of 1963 told Theresa White (1980:20), a St. Petersburg Times journalist, 'Our teachers made us realize that we were black and we had obstacles to face and we really didn't have much time to waste.' Students were informed not only of the structural barriers that shaped their world but were prepared also to compete in the white world. Therefore, Shakespeare, Latin, French and other subjects in classical European curriculum were taught. Also, "English Fairs" were held annually to allow students to display their command of English. Gibbs trained students to be bi-cultural.

Despite African Americans' ability to turn segregation into a positive strategy, it was not an idyllic era. African Americans were hanged, beaten and assaulted. Occasionally, parents could not protect their children from seeing these acts. For example, Paul Barco was a child when he saw Brodley Bass tarred and feathered. Tommy Walton observed the effects of a beating his mother received for missing the last street car from Gulfport. Whether they left their neighborhood or remained inside, as youths, informants knew that the lines that defined their community caged them in a world of racism and limited opportunities. Despite the illusions of a sequestered society, blacks did not feel free inside, recalled Mr. Shannon.

This reality led African Americans to cross boundaries created by segregation and to fight for qualitative change. Hence, African Americans began to challenge legally and protest the discrimination fostered by the city of St. Petersburg. Beginning in the late 1950s, Doctor Fred Alsup sued the city for the right to use the tax supported Spa beach and pool and other facilities. The city closed the pool for several months and sold its golf course in Pasadena to keep blacks out. However, the Fifth Circuit court required the city to abandon its segregation policies. Nevertheless persistent patterns of behavior and years of cultural conditioning were not easily destroyed. Therefore, race-based customs and policies continued to shape the culture in St. Petersburg. Hence, African Americans led sit-ins, boycotted Webb city, literally tore down symbols of white hegemony and rallied to support the striking sanitation workers during the 1 960s. By the end of the decade, they gained a seat on the city council for the first time and sanitation workers had better benefits and working conditions. However, their children continued to attend poorly-equipped Negro schools. Therefore, African Americans perceived their job was incomplete. Almost twenty years after the Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools in Brown vs Topeka Board of Education, Pinellas county desegregated its schools. African Americans considered a major barrier to an open society had fallen. However, their children and communities would pay a heavy price for challenging the power structure of St. Petersburg and the county. Laws changed de jure segregation, but did not alter the years of conditioning that led whites to assume that African Americans were inferior. Therefore, their children were suspended, expelled, disproportionately placed in "emotionally handicapped classes" and given few opportunities to see African Americans in positions of importance. In 1980, nine years after the schools were desegregated, Doreatha Bennett, a parent, observed that in her granddaughter's school, there were no black students in leadership. She and others in the community concluded that black students were treated unequally in the schools. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ensured that they would forever be a minority by limiting their population in each school to a maximum of 30 percent. By 1980, eleven of the 33 middle and high schools did not have black administrators and black teachers comprised 11.6 percent of the population (the affirmative action goal was 15.8 percent) (DeLoache 1980:16). On June 23, 1992, thirty-two retiring African American teachers were interviewed by Peggy Peterman, a St. Petersburg Times journalist. Twenty-one years after desegregation they reported that there continued to be a dearth of black role models in the schools and a climate of cultural tensions. They observed that many white teachers are afraid of black students, and black students do not feel comfortable in the predominantly white schools (Peterman 1992:1D). Even Howard Hinesley, superintendent of schools, acknowledged that whites don't have a significant understanding or appreciation for differences in cultures and a respect for African Americans. "We have culturally ignored some of the issues that bother the (black) students," reported Hinesley (Peterman 1992:1 D). The school board undermined the ability of African American community to transmit its cosmology through the school and endangered African American students by not addressing cultural differences between blacks and whites. The burden of desegregation fell unequally on African American children. Perhaps more devastating, the city's development plans destroyed communities. The preservers and anchors of culture were scattered and estranged by the planned destruction of the community. Hence, the African American community faced tremendous odds. As early as 1975, the African American community was physically separated by an interstate highway.

By 1979, city officials began to remove 170 families and three churches from Fifth to Seventh avenues, south and from Ninth to Sixteenth streets, to expand Campbell park. This park is the east of the Gas Plant area and Booker Creek between Elmore Avenue, South and the Interstate275 corridor. Third, Methodist town was redeveloped to meet the needs of the city. Fourth, by 1986, Gas Plant, almost a century old neighborhood was bulldozed to build a stadium. By the end of the decade, Laurel Park and its contiguous neighborhood were wiped from the face of the planet. During this period, the African American community became stratified by class. Many of the prominent and middle class families moved to the suburbs and beach communities. Hence, many poor youths had few opportunities in their community to see professional persons. Also, many networks were destroyed. All these events occurred for progress. However, one has to question whose development. One cannot underestimate the impact that the destruction of African American communities had on African American youths. The neighborhood is one of the primary socializing agents in an individual's life.

Through the social institutions of the neighborhood, ethnicity is defined and maintained (Rohe and Gates 1985). Ormond Loomis (1983:5) writes that the interaction between relatives and close associates establishes the base from which culture attributes derive. These relationships engender a sense of identity, transmit survival skills, provide individuals a sense of continuity with the past and help them to find meaning in a shared identity (De Vos 1976; Loomis 1983). The transmission of indigenous knowledge by a community to its youth endows them with the values of the group. Without a sense of continuity, the individual exists without appropriate skills for living. Leighton (1959:149-152) argues that when cultures are in transition, psychiatric disorders may occur. He posits that without physical security, love, recognition, membership in a human group, or a place in a moral order, a person finds him or herself surrounded by vague and shifting objects. "Everything appears like everything else and nothing provides a reliable opportunity for fulfilling the patterns upon which the essential psychical conditions depends" (Leighton 1959:152). When traditional means are no longer available to affirm one's sense of identity, alternatives are sought. If we accept this analysis, we may conclude that the current rise in crime among youths is directly related to the disruption of their neighborhoods. African Americans, perceived as a threat to tourism, led city officials to create buffers between downtown and the black community. However, the city's plans backfired. The Suncoast Dome, renamed Thunder Dome is without a team. And many of African American youths the city sacrificed are creating havoc. They are endangering their own lives and the safety and security of citizens and tourists. However, it was the city's love for tourist dollars and its hate and fear of African Americans that created the problems the community faces.

Recommendations

1. Further qualitative research is needed to explore the how the beliefs of African American adolescents differ from the ideas of their parents and the larger African American community.

2. The current distressed state of African American youth, especially males, indicates that the African American community needs to develop community based indigenous programs such as La Churasano. To ensure that the project represents the world view of the African American community, elders and those whom African Americans hold in high regard should help develop the curriculum and implement the concepts. Such schemes for youth should be incorporated into church ministries, neighborhood services, and the curricula of after-school programs and day care centers.

3. The African American community should commission an ethnography of schooling in the Pinellas County school district. This study should focus particularly on the relationship among school administrators, teachers, African American students and their parents. Also, the research should examine the expectations which school officials have concerning the achievement of African American students and how the school personnel's presumptions either support or deny the success of the students.

4. African American parents whose students have been disproportionately suspended and classified as emotionally handicapped should bring a class action suit against the school board. It is anticipated that such action would help the school system to understand that its behavior towards African American students threatens not only the students but the well being of the African American community and the general population.

5. To reduce the adverse effects of cultural hegemony of white values on non white students, the African American community should seek legal redress with other ethnic groups to infuse multiculturalism into the school curricula. Establishing a multicultural curriculum in the school system will serve the entire student body and reduce racism.

6. A task force on busing argues that an Afrocentric curriculum at Gibbs High should be implemented. Such approach is very limited and would serve only few children. Furthermore, such intervention implies that the problem is an African American dilemma. The lack of respect for cultural diversity is a problem shared by all citizens. Also, placing an Afrocentric curriculum at Gibbs releases the school system of its responsibility of offering a culturally sensitive curriculum to all students.

7. It is crucial that the African American community join other ethnic groups and petition the district court for single-member voting districts in county elections. Single-member districts will increase African Americans access to a seat on the school board and thereby increase its diversity.

8. Black culture clubs appear to effectively reinforce a sense of being among African American students. Therefore, African American parents and concerned citizens should encourage all schools to offer Black culture clubs to students until the African American experience is totally infused in the curricula of the schools.

9. Preliminary findings suggest that too frequently television news and programs negatively portray African Americans. This study also reveals that African American adolescents are adversely affected by the media's perception of African Americans. Therefore, African Americans should seek to address this problem. Bringing economic pressure against the management of television stations may be an effective means of ensuring more balanced reporting.

10. African American churches and organizations should remove all symbols that promote the domination of whites and the subordination of blacks. Pictures which portray Jesus as "white" should be eliminated since the data suggest that such images convey to children an idea of white supremacy and black inferiority.

11. To preserve African American neighborhoods against redevelopment schemes, the African American community should petition the state legislature to pass a law that requires that ethnohistories and impact assessments be conducted before a neighborhood can be redeveloped and its residents displaced. The research should be conducted by an independent research firm led by anthropologists. Organizations conducting the studies should be approved by the affected community. The researchers must collaborate with the residents to find solutions to their threatened status. Also, all final recommendations of the study must be approved by the threatened community members before their removal could occur. Efforts should be made to sustain relationships created within neighborhoods. Such resolution would also require that city planners treat neighbors as a collective entity rather than as individuals.

12. All city planners should be required to take a minimum of fifteen hours of anthropology before they can qualify as professionals. The African American community should petition the Florida Board of Regents to ensure that this requirement is universally applied in all Florida schools. A city planner receiving a degree elsewhere would also be required to meet such requirements before being licensed to practice in the state of Florida.

13. Historical landmarks such as the Manhattan Casino and the Melrose Club House are significant symbols of the African American community during segregation. They represent African American achievements and a sense of belonging and should be preserved. The African American community with the support of their congressional and local delegations should seek to place the Manhattan Casino and Melrose Club House on the National Registry of Historical Places. The Casino could be used as a museum that would house exhibits about African American culture. Melrose Club House continues to be used for club meetings, weddings and other social events. However, both need to be repaired. Therefore, social groups such as the fraternities and sororities should organize community members and seek funding to refurbish these historical landmarks.