The forerunner of Mercy Hospital which would serve the black community until its closing in 1966 was established in a five room cottage at 12th Street South and 12th Avenue South. It had from 16 to 21 beds.

Grismer remarked that relatively few of the blacks who came to St. Petersburg before 1920 built or bought homes of their own. Practically all lived in rented quarters mostly owned by whites. However, there were blacks who owned homes and rented property.

Shortly after World War I a number of movements were made to eliminate the worst slum areas and provide decent homes for Negroes. But the movements died almost as soon as they started generally because of public apathy.

In April 1939 construction of 242 dwelling units to be known as Jordan Park began. A second project was sought in 1940 and a contract for 204 units was let and completed in 1941.

Fannye Ayer Ponder Educator 1890-1982

A number of blacks who would have a prominent role in community activities had come to St. Petersburg during the 1920s. These included Dr. James M. Ponder, G.W. Perkins, Mrs. Fannye A. Ponder, Dr. Gilbert Leggett, J.P. Moses and Rev. Enoch Davis.

Dr. Ponder was appointed as city physician for the black community in 1926. As city physician he administered medical care to the underprivileged until he retired in 1951.

Dr. Ponder is said to have written the first prescription for Webb's Drug Store. When he died in 1958, the flag at City Hall was flown at half staff during his funeral. A bronze plaque rests in his memory in the new wing of Bayfront Medical Center.

G.W. Perkins came to St. Petersburg about 1900 and taught school for a while. He left the city to become a mail carrier in Gainesville. He returned to St. Petersburg in 1929.

From 1938 to 1946, Perkins was principal of Gibbs High. An Urban League sociologist, Warren Banner, in a study of the black community here in 194546, credited Perkins with the sound development of Gibbs.

It was under his direction that a vocational school was established. To do this, he secured housing facilities for the $100,000 worth of equipment which the state donated to the school. The vocational school became a permanent structure offering various courses.

Dr. Gilbert H. Leggett was another member of the black community who came to St.Petersburg in the 1920s and who was to have a prominent role in community activities.

Leggett, a dentist, came to the city in 1926. his office was across from Webb's City Furniture Store until he opened a new office in 1959.

He was involved in the suit filed about 1946 which led to blacks being able to vote in the Pinellas County Democratic Party primary. Leggett was one of the founders of the Melrose Park YMCA and he helped bring scouting to the black community.

Coming to St. Petersburg in 1925, Mrs. Ponder taught Social Studies at Gibbs High School and was instruments in raising funds for the first Science Lab equipment at that school.

In the community, she served as Republican Committee Woman. She organized the City Federation and through the help of Dr. Charles Lauffer and the Federated Club Women, she spearheaded the construction of the Federated Club House on Melrose Avenue South. As state president of the Federation, she led the way for the building of Forest Hills Correctional Institute at Lowell for Delinquent Girls. When the call came in 1942 from founder Mary McLeod Bethune, she organized the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Council and provided its home at 1845 Ninth Avenue South. It bears her name and serves P.O.C. and the Community at large for various activities.

The Depression in the 1930s meant for the great majority of Americans hunger, joblessness, and hopelessness. Among these, blacks in St. Petersburg were "the last hired and the first fired." Many blacks were employed by the city to work on week gangs at $1.00 a day and a meal of grits, cornbread and stewbeef. Pay for common laborers in the building trades and other pursuits had been as low at $1.55 an hour. Wages went up very little in the next decade.

Walter Fuller in his book "St. Petersburg and Its People" recalls his sense of pride when in 1944, he paid an able, willing and experienced gardener 50 cents an hour. He remembers the day he was the target of a short but effective "stand up strike."

At the end of one Saturday he tendered the gardener $4 for an eight hour day. With quiet dignity James said, "Mr. Fuller, us yard men got together this week and we decided that we will get 75 cents an hour." James did.

Public schools were hit hard by the depression years and even were closed for a short period. Teachers and city workers were paid in script which merchants loyally honored.

But there were some bright spots to be recalled in the black community. There were Fess Clark and George Cooper, able musicians who along with George Grogan the promoter, kept blacks entertained at the Manhattan Casino on 22nd Street. Close by was the legendary Geech's Barbecue stand!! also there was the best chicken sandwiches in town at Lumas Williams' chicken stand on Second Avenue.At the A&P sardines were selling 3 cans for a dime. The first black newspaper continued to roll off the press once a week and sold at 5 cents a copy. S.H. Mosely was its editor. It is noteworthy to mention here according to Dick Bothwell, that the Times about the end of the 30s began running a Monday Negro page. Mrs. Mamie Brown and Calvin Adams articulately and responsibly kept the black community informed of its activities until 1967 when black news ceased to be segregated and was included in the regular paper. In sports we remember E.H. McLin after whom the Campbell Park Pool is named, a galloping fullback named Nathaniel "Love" Brown, and a baseball legend James Oliver for which the Campbell Baseball Park is named.

But who can forget the avalanche of tourists and their chauffeurs who poured into St. Petersburg during the late 20s and 30s. After driving hours they lined limousines along Second Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets and relaxed in their uniforms for informal chats. These chauffeurs brought a kind of class to the black community, both socially and financially. Discriminated downtown they had to accept food and lodging in the black community across 9th Street South.

Even such names as Cab Calloway, Congressman Oscar DePriest, Roland Hayes, and Mary LcLeod Bethune were denied quarters downtown during the days of segregation and had to live in the black community.

One individual who was very vocal and persistent along with others regarding racial segregation was Rev. Dr. S.J. Carter who came to St. Petersburg to pastor Bethel Metropolitan.

Rev. Carter, because of his color, could have gone to any hotel, motel, or restaurant in the downtown area of St. Petersburg and would have been accorded the same courtesy that any white man received, but he chose not to enjoy these privileges while his black constituency could not enjoy them. During his pastorate at Bethel Metropolitan he served as President of the NAACP and Principal of Gibbs High School for a short period.

In earlier years, education for Negro youth suffered because of discriminatory practices. Schools were inferior, textbooks were outdated, no school bus transportation was furnished and teachers received lower salaries than their white counterparts. To that end the St. Petersburg Branch of NAACP went to the courts to fight this unjust and undemocratic practice. Some public school teachers were afraid to join the NAACP. Some who did join and worked with the NAACP to bring about equalization of salaries were fired from their jobs. Mr. Noah Griffin, then principal of Gibbs High School, was not only fired from his job but when he was later promised a job by a churchrelated college in the state, the state superintendent of public instruction informed the administration of the college that if this man is hired, the college would lose its accreditation. Noah Griffin became one of the first martyrs of the Rights Movement in St. Petersburg. Fortunately he was given a job with the NAACP and spent his later years in California until his death. Among those who were in the forefront in one phase or other for the great equalization fight were Mr. S.W. Curtis, Mr. Noah Griffin, Mrs. Dorothy Thompson, Mrs. Emma Smith, Miss O.B. McLin, Mr. John Hopkins, Mr. Alvie Benton and others.

In 1945 the NAACP decided to attack directly the separate but equal Supreme Court ruling of 1896. It took them ten years to bring this attack to successful fruitionten years in which many Negro Americans would be deprived of the benefits of the longest and largest postwar boom the nation has ever known.

On Monday, May 17, 1954, United States Supreme Court reversed the 1896 "separate but equal principle, ruling that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and declaring that school desegregation must begin "will all deliberate speed."

Ralph Wimbish Physician and Civic Leader 1922-1967

The nation soon discovered changes could also be wrought through direct action. Reaction here at home followed swiftly by the Citizens Cooperative Committee organized by Rev. Enoch D. Davis, Chester James, Jr., J.P. Moses and Dr. Fred Alsup. Others who would join were Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Wimbish, Mr. Chester James, Sr., Mr. F.A. Dunn, Rev. J.L. Fennell, Mrs. Fannye A. Ponder, Miss O.B. McLin and others.

In 1954 The St. Petersburg Non Partisan Voters League headed by J.P. Moses, along with Mr. F.A. Dunn, a long time activist including voter registration and presidency of the NAACP, conducted a voter registration drive. It also sought improved streets and lighting in the black community and more job opportunities for blacks.

In 1957 guided by the NAACP and the CCC, Dr. Ralph Wimbish, Dr. Fred Alsup, Mr. Chester James, Jr., and Mr. J.P. Moses petitioned the city officials to grant public use of municipal Spa Beach and Pool based on the fact that they had been denied admission to these facilities solely on the basis of race. When the city failed to respond, a suit was filed in the federal court in Tampa, in December 1955, to gain use of municipal swimming facilities. Mrs. Fannye A. Ponder remarked often in her talks to whites that "it was a sin and a shame with all this God given water around us that she could not even put her feet in it."

The federal court in Tampa ruled in February 1956 that the city could not legally bar Negroes from using Spa Beach and Pool. The city's legal department appealed the case to the Fifth Circuit of Appeals in Atlanta. In December 1956, the Atlanta Court upheld the Tampa rulking. Two months later the city petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. In April 1957 the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, thus ending the city's legal route of appeal.

More than three years after the Spa Beach suit was filed, integration finally became a reality at the municipal facility.