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The Ernest Ayer Ponder
Collection
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Introduction and Provenance
The Ernest Ayer Ponder Collection consists of two document boxes, a scrapbook, and one folder containing oversized material. Mrs. Ernest (Clara M.) Ponder donated these materials to the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library in August 2000.Restrictions/Preservation Note
Please report any tears or other damage so library staff may take appropriate preservation or conservation measures. While no restrictions limit access to these materials, library staff will evaluate photocopying requests on an individual basis to ensure the long-term preservation of this unique collection.
Biographical Note
Mr. Ernest A. Ponder was born on 3 April 1918, and came to St. Petersburg in 1924 with his parents, James Maxie Ponder and Fannye Ayer Ponder. His father was the city's first black physician, and his mother was a school teacher. He attended local schools until St. Petersburg's segregated black schools were closed during the Depression. He completed his degree at a high school affiliated with Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he became a protégé of his mother's good friend, Mary McLeod Bethune. After two years of college at Bethune-Cookman, Ponder completed his junior and senior years at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He graduated from Morehouse in 1938, and soon thereafter took a job in the Adjutant General's Office of the War Department, serving there until the end of World War II. He married Clara Meshaw on 3 February 1942.
In 1945, the Ponders returned to St. Petersburg. He began teaching at Gibbs High School, then an all-black school. He took over his mother's courses and classroom after she was forced to retire due to ill health. He continued to teach at Gibbs for the next twenty-five years, becoming the chair of the social studies department. He also directed the school's noted St. Cecilia Choir and later the chancel choir of Bethel Community Baptist Church. While a teacher, he enrolled in postgraduate courses at Fisk University, Stetson College, New York University, and the University of South Florida.
In 1969, he transferred to Lakewood High School and served there during the tumultuous first years of school integration until his retirement in 1979. Among his accomplishments at Lakewood was his work with others to help develop a resource guide on African American history for the Pinellas County Public Schools. He also taught an innovative black history course for Lakewood students, although the course was listed under the non-controversial title of "Humanities."
Following his retirement, Ponder continued his interests in African American history, working on a revised curriculum guide to the subject for eighth and eleventh graders and writing "A Panoramic Glimpse of Black History in St. Petersburg," a narrative that traces the black community's history back to John Donaldson in 1868, the first black landholder on the southern Pinellas peninsula. He often spoke on black history topics to community groups and gave several interviews to reporters. In his later years, he also became active in aging issues, serving on various local and state committees and advisory groups. Ponder's lifetime of community service and legendary devotion to his students led to 15 October 1994 being declared "Ernest Ayer Ponder Day" throughout the State of Florida. He passed away on 18 January 1998, at the age of seventy-nine.
Scope and Contents
Items in the Ponder Collection reside in two document boxes, with some additional books, and occupy approximately 1.75 linear feet of shelf space. In addition, a videotape of the reception honoring Mr. Ponder is available for researchers.
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