CHAPTER 4
A HISTORICAL LEGACY OF SUNSHINE AND RACE

"Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor -- bare. But all the time l 'se been a-climbin' on," a mother explains to her son in one of Langston Hughes' poem (Hughes 1987:187). This mother's lament may be a symbol of the legacy of African Americans in St. Petersburg.

Life for African Americans in St. Petersburg has been marked with travail. From the 1880s, when they first arrived, until today, they have been treated as second- class citizens. Their marginal position in the society has been abetted by institutionalized racism. Apart from racism, their treatment has been influenced by an assumption that their presence adversely affects tourism. The city council incorporated such beliefs into laws, restricted African Americans to certain neighborhoods and forbade them from using many municipal facilities. Segregation became a gauche marketing strategy in the post-civil rights era, and, it was, in any case, legally impossible for city council to restrict African Americans to separate districts. As a modern "sunbelt city," the city designated some African American neighborhoods as blighted slums, removed the residents, and demolished their homes, churches, and businesses. The juxtaposition of blackness in the lives of African Americans in St. Petersburg is a collective and personal story about racial conflict.

Racism led African descendants in St. Petersburg to create insular communities and to fight for their proprietary rights. They reinforced their bonds with each other through spiritual, financial, social and educational institutions. These structures gave them refuge and dignity and allowed them to endure the humiliation of segregation. Strengthened by the protest movement of the Sixties, they challenged the city and crossed racial barriers. Although integration seemed to offer a new dawn, an essential institutional relationship was sacrificed.

African Americans lost control of their schools and the education of their children. Their children became minorities in predominant white institutions and schools became hostile environments for many. The achievements of African American students are abysmal when compared to the accomplished of their predecessors who attended segregated schools. This situation recently led a task- force of community leaders to recommend that Gibbs High establish an Afrocentric curriculum primarily for African American youths. Derrick Bell (1991:9) aptly describes the paradox of desegregation for African Americans, "we have attained all the rights we sought in law and gained none of the resources we need in life. Like the crusaders of old, we sought the holy grail of "equal opportunity" and having gained it in court decisions and civil statutes, find it transformed from the long-sought guarantee of racial equality into one more device the society can use to perpetuate the racial status quo." Despite grave and disappointing circumstances, African Americans continue to seek greater integration of their epistemology into the mainstream curriculum of Pinellas county's school system. They seek to ensure their children a more secure legacy firmly supported by education.

The goal of this chapter is to show how political, social and economic decisions and racist assumptions structure the lives of African Americans in St. Petersburg. It is a chronicle of the migration of African and white Americans to this coastal city and an exploration of how their divergent and often competing interpretations of the "good life" created a community that is undergirded by racial tensions. To provide context and meaning to the world views of African Americans, their lives are juxtaposed with persistent attempts by the city administration to maintain the hegemony of whites by restricting the rights, opportunities and lives of African Americans. This analysis is a further examination of African Americans' struggle to extricate themselves from the peonage of sharecropping, servitude, and vociferous racism. It is also a documentation of their fight for their political rights as citizens in a city that has preferred them to be invisible and submissive.

Historical Construction Of Tourism

To appreciate African American migration to St. Petersburg, it is necessary to understand the development of tourism. In 1885, W. C. Van gibber, a Baltimore physician, proclaimed that Pinellas Point was the healthiest spot on earth (Vesper) 1985:35). At the American Medical Association meeting in New Orleans, he posited that this area was an ideal location to maximize health and to ensure longevity (Arsenault 1988:52). The beach was broad and graceful, stretching for many miles, the air was healthy and the average winter temperature was 72 degrees, explained Van Bibber (Arsenault 1988:53). He proposed that a "health city" be built on the 160,000 acres of primal tropical forest.

His proclamation led to the transformation of this palmetto swamp land into a leisure community for whites (Arsenault 1988:53). Land speculators and wealthy financiers who envisioned millions of tourists enjoying the climate began to develop the area. New England property owners provided the necessary cash to build the Orange Belt Railway. Previously, St. Petersburg was only accessible by boat. This rail system placed St. Petersburg in reach of so many tourists that tourism became its primary industry. By 1910, Lew Brown, editor of the St. Petersburg Evening Independent dubbed this Gulf coast town, the "Sunshine City."

It became a tourist mecca. "The first string of tourist Pullmans from New York rolled into St. Petersburg in 1909" (Arsenault 1988:144). By 1913, two hundred tourists from Indiana and Ohio arrived in the city by train (Arsenault 1988:145). In 1914 and 1925 the St. Louis Browns and the New York Yankees, respectively, made St. Petersburg their winter home (Arsenault 1988:143). Prominent entertainers performed for the huge crowds of tourists at the Coliseum Ballroom (Vesper) 1984:35). However, the tourist industry did not really boom until after World War I, when St. Petersburg became accessible by automobile.

Tourism became a billion dollar industry in St. Petersburg. By 1920, tourists who could only afford tents on campgrounds joined the upper middleclass winter tourists who were began visiting a decade earlier. Between 1923 and 1926, ten large hotels were built (Arsenault 1988:261). The Depression slowed tourism during the first half of the 1930s. However, by 1935 tourism began to rebound. In 1939, 68,300 tourists visited St. Petersburg. Just a year later that number had risen to 77,777. During 1987 more than 3.6 million tourists visited St. Petersburg and Pinellas County (St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce 1989). Tourism increased the economy of the county by $1.8 billion in 1989. It continues to be a major source of income for the economy.

St. Petersburg is dependent on tourism, suburbanism and the related services (Vesper) 1985:36). It lacks a commercially navigable harbor and natural resources that could help the city to become a major center of trade and commerce. City officials and business persons have consistently set a high priority on ensuring that the tourist economy is protected and enhanced. Tourism as a major industry in St. Petersburg created a paradoxical relationship between city officials and African Americans. City official perceived African Americans as essential cheap labor for tourism. They were hired to lay rails, pave the streets, clean hotels, wait tables and carry luggage. Arsenault (1988:124) who chronicled the history of St. Petersburg from 1888 to 1950, writes, "without the blood, sweat, and tears expended by people of color, St. Petersburg would not have been an up-and-coming city that attracted tourists." However, outside of their ascribed roles and without their uniforms, African Americans were considered a liability and a risk to tourism. City officials parlayed their fears into laws that segregated African Americans from the rest of the community.

I Hear There Is A Boom In St. Petersburg

Since the 1800s, substantial numbers of African Americans have settled and raised families in St. Petersburg. Between 1910 and 1990 their population increased from 1,095 to 47,726. Presently, African Americans comprise 20% of the population. Although they have comprised less than quarter of the population since the 1920s, their percentage of the population has grown steadily. Between 1920 and 1940, the number of African Americans in St. Petersburg increased from 2,394 to 11,980. This rise in population was attributed to the booming tourist job market. Although, tourism slowed between 1950s and 1960s, African American population still grew. City demographers argued that this growth was natural and caused by reproduction. The city planners reasoned that without jobs, conditions were too harsh for Negroes to either move to, retire or vacation in St. Petersburg. These officials explained that Negroes could not enjoy the beaches and other recreational facilities. Since desegregation of the city in the 1970s, more African Americans have moved to St. Petersburg. This phenomenon has been created by an increased number of professional African Americans who migrated from northern cities to St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg Times 3.24.91). African Americans have also become a larger percentage of the population of St. Petersburg because fewer Whites moved to St. Petersburg during the past decade. Between 1980 and 1990, the white population dropped by approximately 17, 000 (4.6% decline). Many whites who migrated to the area moved to the suburbs north of St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg Times 3.24.93). Despite conditions, numerous of African Americans have made St. Petersburg their residence. (See table 1).

The idea of making a better living motivated many African Americans to leave their rural southern communities. Retired nurse Annie Sue Brinson remembers that her mother and aunt left Quitman' Georgia in March 1923 and came to St. Petersburg to work. They heard that jobs were plentiful. "Women were attracted by the availability of service work in hotels, restaurants and private homes" suggests Vesperi (1985:36). They joined the men who came, built the railroads, stayed and helped erect other infrastructures. Later they were joined by other men who either found jobs as garbage collectors, golf caddies, chauffeurs and laborers or became entrepreneurs. Although there was a high rate of employment during the land booms from the 1 920s to the 1950s in St. Petersburg, a better living was relative compared to their white counterparts. African Americans were restricted to jobs as servants and laborers when working outside of their neighborhoods.

Blackened By The Sun Is O.K.; Blackened By Genes Is A Threat

Although the labor of African Americans had been integral to tourism in St. Petersburg, their presence posed a dilemma for white supremacists (Arsenault 1988:125). City officials and various members of the business community determined that the presence of African Americans as full-fledged citizens would lessen the city's ability to attract investors and tourists. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the question was how to exploit the labor of African Americans without granting them full citizenship in a post slave society (Arsenault 1988:25). The problem was resolved by taking extreme measures. The city's efforts included denying the presence of African Americans, restricting their movements, segregating services, and Iynching black males.

As tourism grew, business people became more concerned about how their transplanted northern customers perceived Negroes. Paul Barco, a trained historian, born in St. Petersburg in 1916 remembers hearing his father discuss the erection of colored and white only sections during the 1920s. He recalls that his father customarily went to a white dentist in town. One day his father visited his dentist and was informed that he had to wait until the doctor could build a separate waiting room for colored people. The dentist suggested that things were changing and the northerners did not want to see colored people when they came for treatment. To safeguard their tourist economy, city officials and businesses denied the significant presence of African Americans in the city. During the 1920s, the city's promotional leaflets implied that the African Americans population was rather small. City planner, Jim Nolan insisted that St. Petersburg did not have a particularly large colored population, but like all southern cities it had its colored section (Arsenault 1988:124). The St. Petersburg Times reinforced this denial by publishing the news of Negroes for twenty-eight years, from 1939 to 1967, as a separate page that its white subscribers never saw.

To further conceal African Americans from the tourists, the city council legislated a series of ordinances that strictly interpreted and defined the role and place of African Americans in St. Petersburg. In 1931 Subsection (ff) of Section 3 of the city charter established "separate residential limits or districts for white and negro [sic] residents." Essentially, this act restricted 7,393 African Americans (18% of the city's population) to 2 percent of the land in St. Petersburg, says Darryl Paulson, a historian at the University of South Florida. After World War II, in 1946, the St. Petersburg city council decided to create a law that would keep Negroes out of the domains of whites. Therefore, the body determined "for the purpose of promoting the peace and good order of the city," it was unlawful to sell, serve, or allow to be served "any colored person in a place of business maintained for the white race" (Code 1946, Chapter 18, Section 19). Since the hotels, restaurants, pools and other facilities were geared to whites, this rule effectively banned African Americans from downtown except when working.

Even during the 1950s, the city sought to contain the African American community. When African American neighborhoods expanded beyond previously prescribed boundaries, the city council appointed a committee of blacks and whites to determine new boundary lines for the African American settlement (Davis 1979:24). This committee essentially agreed to keep the existing boundaries and that African Americans would not move south of Fifteenth Avenue between Twenty-Second Street and Thirty-Fourth Streets in order to maintain segregated zones. (See map, figure 1.) During this period, the 14,000 African Americans comprised 14.5 percent of the population in St. Petersburg. However, they lived within a perimeter of 1.12 square miles on 712 acres of land. The city limits included 52.3 square miles of land or 33,247 acres (St. Petersburg Planning Department 1955:12).

Even before a law existed, city officials sought to deny the legitimacy of African Americans outside of their neighborhoods. In 1935, the city council attempted to prevent African Americans from swimming at South Mole, a downtown beach. Traditionally, African Americans swam at this spot, which was blighted with sludge and discarded freight and passenger cars (Paulson 1982:6). It was the only place in 45 miles of beach that they could swim until Doctor Fred Alsup sued the city in 1958. The courts then forced the integration of the city's pools. Yet city council argued that if Negro bathing continued at the waterfront, "it would cause trouble" (Paulson 1982:6). Therefore, the city proposed several alternative sites for African Americans to swim. However, the inability of the white community to reach a consensus and the protests of African Americans allowed them to continue swimming at South Mole. Nevertheless, for more than twenty years, City Council and white community organizations such as the St. Petersburg Ministerial Association persistently demanded that African Americans find another place to enjoy the waterfront.

The City of St. Petersburg did not deny that it was in the business of tourism. In 1955, shortly after the Supreme Court decision of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, the City of St. Petersburg acknowledged its proprietary role in managing tourist attractions and justified its discrimination against African Americans. When Alsup, an African American sued for entrance to the Spa Pool and Beach, the city argued in Federal District court that it segregated its facilities "for the purpose of efficiently carrying on business" (Paulson 1982:10). St. Petersburg further posited that if Spa Pool and Beach were integrated it would lose money and be forced to close.

Although the city lost that court battle on April 1, 1957, it refused to integrate the pool. Instead the pool was closed. From August 21, 1955 until January 6, 1959, Spa Pool and Beach patrons were locked out four times. Each incident was in reaction to African Americans' attempt to swim there. Even when the pool was eventually re- opened, it was because businesses were losing profits rather than due to a concern for the rights of African Americans. The Chamber of Commerce pressured the city and complained that businesses lost downtown tourist revenue while the pool was closed (Paulson 1982:16). These demands led the city council to vote to re-open the facilities (Paulson 1982:16).

The 1914 Iynching of John Evans suggests that the city leaders were also willing to fatally harm African Americans who they perceived threatened the development of tourism. Jon Wilson (1983:4-16) writes in "Days of Fear: A Lynching in St. Petersburg," a fear of losing profits from tourists and investments from wealthy northeastern industrialists led to the Iynching of Evans (Wilson 1983:4-16). Ed Sherman was murdered and his wife was assaulted allegedly by two Negro males. Evans and Ebenezer Tobin were targeted as the criminals. Both men had been employed by Sherman. However, a few months before Sherman's murder, Evans terminated his services and began working for another employer. A dispute had led him to seek other employment. City officials and tourism boosters wanted to send a message to the town's financial backers in Philadelphia and other parts of northeast that investing in St. Petersburg was not risky. They brought Evans to Mrs. Sherman's bedside to determine if he was the criminal. Sherman's wife denied that he attacked her and Evans asserted his innocence. Nevertheless, fifteen of the city's wealthiest citizens found Evans guilty in a private meeting prior to Iynching him (Wilson 1983:23). He was taken from the jail, shot, mostly by women and children, and hanged at the corner of Second Avenue South and Ninth Street near Cooper's Quarters, a predominantly African American settlement.

"Swaying ever so slightly in the soft, Florida night " (Italics added) is how Luther Atkins, a member of the Iynch mob described the blasted corpse of Evans (Wilson 1983:17). Such description poignantly infers that only silenced Negroes were compatible with the tropical life styles of Florida. The coroner concluded that Evans had been killed byunknown persons.

Without Political Rights

Until 1969, African Americans were politically disfranchised and had little power to affect the city's discriminatory policies. Arbitrarily their right to vote was denied at various times. In 1913, an all-white primary was held, although 500 African Americans were registered voters. Leaders of the Democratic party and Lew Brown, editor of the St. Petersburg Independent, argued that the white primary was necessary 'in order to maintain control of city affairs in the hands of white people' (Arsenault 1988:128). In 1921, they were not permitted to go to the polls (Arsenault 1988:194). Whites were fearful that significant numbers of Negroes would re-elect Noel Mitchell, who had been forced from office. In 1927, another white primary election was held for judges and clerks. Even when St. Petersburg was incorporated and the first election was held in 1892, African Americans were not even informed of the vote. It was not until 1946, two years after the United States Supreme Court ruled that all-white primaries were unconstitutional that St. Petersburg opened all elections to African Americans (Arsenault 1988:305). Until 1969, the districts were drawn so that it was impossible for African Americans to elect a representative from their community. For the first one hundred years, African Americans resided in the city, they did not have a real voice in the electoral process.

There Is A Balm In Gilead

Consequently, these legal and extralegal measures led African Americans to live in segregated enclaves known as Coopers Quarters, Gas Plant, the Country/Jordan Park, Methodist Town, Pepper Town and Little Egypt. Except for Methodist Town all of these subcommunities were located south of the railroad tracks and west of Ninth Street, South. Methodist Town was north of Central Avenue. Until the 1970s, without distinction of status every Negro lived in certain neighborhoods. Even professional baseball players and entertainers who came to entertain the white tourists had to find rooms in the African American community.

Vanessa Williams (1990) describes her experience of being raised in the Gas Plant neighborhood during the 1950s and 1960s. This journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer writes that although the Gas Plant was fraught with fistfights, shootings, stabbings, alcoholism, and too many school-aged parents, it was a vibrant community.

Retired schoolteachers would call out to us as we walked to and from school, encouraging us to get good grades and to 'Get on home to your mama, now!' Mr. Welch, whose sons included a preacher, teacher, and a tax accountant would wave at us from his rocking chair on the porch of his firewood business. Another neighborhood character was Miss Callie, an eccentric old woman whose house was filled with toys and games. She would often invite us over for tea parties during which she'd teach us to be 'proper ladies.' Neighbors pitched in to feed and bathe the children of single mothers who got sick; the able- bodied cleaned white people's houses and dug ditches during the week, did marketing on Saturday and went to church on Sunday; and my mother, grew collard greens and roses in our narrow, sandy back yard.

Williams (1990) concludes that although the city considered her neighborhood to be distressed, to her, it was a place with a soul. Arsenault (1988:126) suggests that prior to 1950, "black St. Petersburg was not a community of despair."

Even its poorest citizens were frequently sustained by strong kinship networks and a vital Afro-American folk culture based on religion and communal values. Single-parent household were relatively rare, and local blacks did not have to look outside of their community to find inspiring role models or other sources of individual dignity and self esteem.

Churches helped to tie the African American community together. They were sources of networks and gave relocatees a sense of belonging. Through the church, newcomers were told of job openings and offered places to live, suggests Willie Felton, a college administrator and member of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church. Often the sanctuary would be the first place one would go after arriving in town. Reverend J. L. Fennel, recalls that the first Sunday after he came to St. Petersburg he joined New Hope Baptist Church. Perkins Shelton remembers that when he moved to St. Petersburg in 1971, almost invariably, which church he attended was the first question others asked him. Hence, those who joined the church were integrated into the African American community. The church was so essential to African American life that it was the first institution that they established in St. Petersburg. In 1894, Reverend J. S. Braswell with two of his younger church brothers established Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Methodist Town. By 1920, there were seven major congregations and several smaller fellowships (Arsenault 1988:127). Repeatedly, such collective efforts were made to create religious structures. By the middle of this century, committed individuals had organized fellowships that ranged from Presbyterian to Holiness.

The church not only served the spiritual needs of African Americans. It became a platform for ministers to confront social inequalities. Being a pastor authorized African American preachers to cross boundaries that other African Americans could not traverse without retribution. Parsons protected by the collar of Christianity, challenged city policies and spoke out against racial discrimination. In 1938, when principal Noah Griffin, principal of Gibbs High School was beaten by the police, Reverend Doctor John Wesley Carter, a pastor of Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church addressed the City Council. He reminded the members to respect Negroes and properly serve them (Arsenault 1988:269). While talking to this body, he admonished them to extend African Americans the right to vote, hire black policemen and remove white businesses from Negro areas just as they had removed Negroes from white areas. (Arsenault 1988:269; Davis 1979:43). He reminded both parishioners and the city council of the moral bankruptcy of racial discrimination (Arsenault 1988:269; Davis 1979:43). Reverend Enoch Davis also became an activist pastor. He and Reverend Carter often attended trials to ensure that black defendants were treated fairly by the justice system (Davis 1979:43). In these ways, the community used the church and its leaders to oppose racial discrimination.

There Is Dignity In My Home

Outside of the community, African Americans were subjected to a racially subordinate status. However, in their home territory, they could be members of high society groups. Even maids and porters could trade their uniforms for tuxedos and gowns and attend debutante and charity balls. Character, style and integrity were the most important criteria. Mary McRae, a socialite, describes the dances in this manner, "Whenever we had dances, they were formal. When you arrived, if you were not formal down to your shoes, you were not allowed to enter. We tried to set the best standards."

The Manhattan Casino, a thriving entertainment and business complex from the 1 920s to the 1 960s was "the place to be and to be seen" explains Monty Campbell, a retired school social worker. It was a venue for Count Basie, Jelly Roll Morton, Mills Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, Ike and Tina Turner, Fats Domino, Ink Spots and many others. Coronation and charity balls and Gibbs' high school proms were held at the Manhattan. It was known as "the home of happy feet" in the African American community.

Social clubs were also a core of African American life during segregation. Newspaper articles highlighted the activities of diverse associations. Bid Whist card parties, teas, balls, plays and cabaret were among those organized gatherings. Various reasons motivated the founding of these associations. For example, the Odd Brothers, a Christian club for men, was founded in 1929 to reinforce and support a Christian lifestyle. In 1941 Sightless Christian Association was incorporated to offer emotional comfort and companionship to those who are visually challenged. The City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs were established to improve the status of women and their image in the white world. The Ambassadors club which includes physicians, lawyers and other professional men was organized in 1951 to promote civic, cultural, educational and social activities. Whether stimulated by personal needs or societal conditions, organizations such as the All States Chauffeur's Club and Piquant Los Jovens Club reinforced relationships among African Americans. Business Is A Key To Freedom

Entrepreneurship flourished in these cut-off communities especially from the 1 920s to the 1 960s. By March, 1940, a local chapter of the Negro Business League had already formed (St. Petersburg Times 3.31.40). The Methodist Town Pioneers Reunion committee documents that 68 businesses thrived during the first half of this century in their neighborhood. City directories between 1933 and 1961 also list many diverse businesses in Gas Plant and Jordan Park. Hotels, dry cleaning plants, shoe repair shops, tailoring shops, auto repair shops, Mosely Sylvester's Informers Publishing Company, ice cream parlors, lawyers, dentists and other services reduced the need for African Americans to go downtown.

The climate for the development of these businesses was sometimes unfriendly. Some owners were harassed by white competitors. For example, Mr. Darcus Fliming [sic] developed a prosperous ice cream company and attracted white and African American customers alike. He was known for the quality of his ice cream. However, his white competitors continually threatened his milk suppliers until he was forced to close his business. Initially, they intimidated local contacts to stop supplying his company. However, Fliming went to Tampa to get milk. Eventually, those individuals informed him that they could no longer take the risk of serving him. Finally, Fliming contacted a supplier in Lakeland, a town more than fifty miles from St. Petersburg. Nevertheless the story was repeated for the third time. Therefore, unable to get the main and essential ingredient for his product, his business declined. Other entrepreneurs were directly attacked. Brodley Bass, a prosperous business man, whose expensive home still stands in the community, was tarred and feathered three times. His only crime was being black and having too much money for his prescribed status. Off the records, informants tell of a contractor who won a construction bid, completed the job, went to pick up his money and was never seen again. Members of the community suspect that he was killed because his success had been considered a threat by some whites. No investigation occurred. Within this context African American businesses grew in St. Petersburg.