Newtown Alive

Estella Moore-Thomas owned Moore's Grocers when Black residents couldn't shop at Publix and Winn Dixie. The Newtown business that still bears the family's name supplied the community with groceries and fresh produce. Before Moore's, Thomas rented a store in the building once occupied by Eddy's Fruit Stand. Harriet D. Moore, her daughter, helped operate the store.  “We were one of the few stores that gave credit to people,” Harriet chimed.   Moore grew up in Sidell, Florida located 50 miles east of Sarasota in a turpentine camp. The home remedies used to treat illnesses consisted of turpentine, Epsom salt, castor oil and cobwebs. “When I came here, we didn't have electricity. I opened the door of the refrigerator and the lamp fell and broke. Right there, just cut it to the bone. They filled it up with cobwebs. No stitches or nothing. No doctors, but I lived through it.”   The elder Moore didn't finish high school because the responsibility of helping at home as a teenager stood in the way, but she made sure her children received the best education. Harriet earned a doctorate degree and was the Sarasota County School district's Director of Innovation and Equity. “The way that it used to be, I miss rallying around people who didn't have and making sure that nobody went hungry around here.”

The late Elder Willie Mayes was proud of the family church that began in his parent's home with six members. He began pastoring New Zion Primitive Baptist Church in 1984 and operated a cement finishing business for 45 years.  The company is among the oldest Black owned enterprises in Sarasota. At age 14, he stopped attending school to help his family make ends meet financially. Mayes earned meager wages doing farm work in Fruitville near where the family lived. Children in the settlement of approximately 50 residents attended school in a little church. The people walked a quarter of a mile to pump water for daily use. In 1944, the family moved to Newtown where Mango Avenue is situated between Highway 301 and the railroad tracks near the city dump. “The smoke bothered us for years. We stayed in the house most of the time to escape that smoke.,” Mayes said. His sister Rosa Lee Thomas believes their neighbors on Mango died as a result of the fumes. She keeps a record of their names as a memorial. An unforgettable moment in Thomas' life was being chosen the 10th grade attendant of Miss Booker High School with another attendant Willie Mae (Blake) Sheffield.

School integration caused trauma and fear for Carolyn Mason and rightly so.  She lived in Overtown's “Black Bottom” located at the corner of 8th Street and Central Avenue in segregated Sarasota. There was a dividing line at 3rd Street or present day Fruitville Road. “I call it the Mason-Dixon line. North of Fruitville was the Black community; and south was downtown for the more affluent community.” The communities did not mix. “My senior year in high school should have been my best year, but it was full of apprehension. I couldn't think past the fear of being around people I had never been around before. I didn't know what I was afraid of, but I was afraid. Somebody should have talked to the children – all of the children – about what to expect. Somebody should have said, ‘You don't have anything to worry about.'” Mason began a career in public service after viewing a theater production in Sarasota that lacked a diverse cast. Frustrated, she became the go between for talented African American artists and arts organizations. “I offered myself as a bridge. I was probably on the board at one time of every arts organization in Sarasota County.” She was elected to the Sarasota City Commission and served from 1999 to 2003. She was Mayor of Sarasota from 2001 to 2003. Mason is the first African American elected to the Sarasota County Commission in 2008 and served as chair in 2013 and 2015. Social issues are the focus of her work.  Carolyn Mason's oral history was provided by interviewer Hope Black.

At age eight, Mary's family moved to unit #10 in a public housing complex in Newtown. The differences between conditions in Overtown where they lived before, and the new complex were like night and day.  The new apartment had a bathroom, electricity, a yard with grass, and sidewalks. Before that, their shotgun house had no running water. They pumped water for bathing, washing dishes and laundry.  There were three tubs to wash, rinse garments, and rinse again. Before Clorox, a boil pot whitened clothes. An outhouse 15 feet from the house was used. A portable oil stove was the major kitchen appliance and kerosene lamps provided light.  An imaginary boundary line kept community children from veering past 10th Street. Simmons only ventured across the line to grocery shop with her grandmother. “We would walk down Main Street and smell peanuts in the five-and-dime store. I remember asking, ‘Granny can I have an ice cream cone.' She said, ‘sit here.' I sat on the curb. I never forgot the place, Oleander's. Granny went in, got it, and brought it outside. I looked at her, looked at the cone, looked at the people sitting inside. But you didn't ask adults questions. You just did as you were told.” Sheila Sanders has a sweet smile but don't mistake it for weakness. She organized a boycott of the Sarasota Federal Bank as a third grader at Booker Elementary School. At that time, her class learned money management by filling out savings deposit slips for their pennies, dimes and nickels, but the students could not take tours of the bank as children from other schools did. Sanders persuaded her classmates to send deposits to Palmer Bank where they could tour.  Her actions foreshadowed future activism. The teenager proactively participated in the NAACP accompanying leaders John Rivers and Maxine Mays to local and state meetings. In high school, Sanders learned about the political process by reviewing the agenda of school board meetings and attended the meetings by taking the city bus. “Some things won't be said just because you're sitting there.”  Sanders, William “Flick” Jackson and John Rivers joined Dr. Edward E. James II as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the City of Sarasota. They successfully pushed for single member district voting that opened the way for African American representation on the Sarasota City Commission.

Alberta Brown is known in the Newtown community for her sumptuous southern-style Sunday throw downs – a big roast seasoned to the bone, a large pot of collards, long pans of buttery yams, melt in your mouth mac-n-cheese and moist cornbread with crispy edges.  It is as if a small army of people are dinner guests. Extended family members, church friends and drop-ins are part of the platoon stopping in for a plate. Brown's family members were sharecroppers from Alachua County. They moved to Palmetto and found work picking tomatoes and green beans. Brown later worked as a live-in on Siesta Key for a physician's family. She took care of the couple's little girl. When help was no longer needed, she followed in her sister's footsteps, training to become a cook. The position at her next job evolved into more. Jane Bancroft Cook, heir to the Dow Jones & Company family enterprise was looking for a cook. Through a recommendation from a previous employer, Cook met a tall, soft-spoken woman and hired her on the spot. Brown recalls the interview that day. “She looked at me and said, ‘oh, you're beautiful.'” What followed was a friendship with Cook until her death in 2002 and a lifelong kinship with the family that remains today.

As an African American public health nurse, the late Gwendolyn Atkins spent a lifetime healing bruises in the community. For nearly three decades, retired nurse Gwen Atkins walked door to door in Newtown neighborhoods, public housing areas and in migrant camps teaching young mothers about childcare, treating childhood diseases, monitoring the health of aging residents and making sure seasonal workers received medical services. She set up a makeshift clinic in the garage of Stephens Funeral Home. “We'd treat impetigo and ring worms. She became extended family members of their patients. The line between work and play often blurred. Nursing and being on call, accessible and always available was a way of life. “If I had to do it all over again, I would choose public health nursing and I would choose serving my community. That's what I love more than anything else,” Atkins said.

Betty Jean Johnson is a voracious reader who loves traveling to faraway places through books. Her teacher Prevell Barber stoked an appreciation for the written word. “I always had to read something in her class or around her. The fact of it is when I read, I travel. We didn't have TV until later.” Johnson thought her college education would lead to a career in social work.   Instead, a high school class in “library procedures” changed her trajectory after graduating from Gibbs Junior College in St. Petersburg. Back then, Manatee Community College, now known as State College of Florida was off limits to African Americans. Mary Emma Jones, a well-respected entrepreneur and community leader orchestrated the hiring of Mary Thomas at the Sarasota Public Library.   Thomas helped Johnson land a job there. The facility was not a welcoming place for African American patrons. Johnson understood what Newtown residents encountered. “For a book report, I had to go to that library for a book because we didn't have it at the Booker library. There were ‘closed stacks' closed to Blacks. The lady at the desk had to go to the stacks to get the book. When I started working there, those same people were there.” For years, a perplexing question dogged Johnson. “What can I do to get more Blacks to use the library?” A solution to the conundrum came while preparing to work a split shift. She would ask the boss for use of an old book mobile the library was about to replace. Instead, administrators provided an outreach van that made books accessible to African American children.   From a van to a storefront library operating on a shoestring budget, Johnson and supporters kept pushing, even though for years their efforts seemed fruitless. Finally, the North Sarasota Public Library opened as a result of the seed of an idea that Johnson planted. The facility is named after her.

The late Dr. Thomas Clyburn remembered hearing the sound of his patent leather loafers on the floor of a Blue Bird bus while stepping out of his seat and walking down the aisle to the front, then down the steps on the first day of school in 11th grade. The setting was unfamiliar. Earlier that day, Clyburn showed up for class at Booker High School where he was an honors student. He was asked to wait outside, near the main office and didn't know why. A bus pulled up. “Are you Thomas Clyburn?” driver Robert Graham asked. “Yes, I am,” the teenager replied. “I'm here to take you to school, not here.” The driver and passenger took the route from Myrtle Avenue to North Washington Boulevard to Sarasota High School. Students were everywhere. “Good luck. I'll come back to pick you up.” The bus driver dropped him off in front of the gothic style building. When he stepped off the bus, the world in front of him froze.   “Everyone was looking at me. My pulse rate in my throat went to the roof.” He  walked to the administration office. “It was really, really, really quiet. The principal [Gene Pilot] introduced himself. He asked a few questions.” Then a teacher escorted him to homeroom. Some students were silent. Some whispered. “That was my first day. It was a challenge. You would think those days would get better over time, but in many ways they got worse.”   Clyburn, no longer in Booker's cocoon of nurturing teachers and classmates was chosen for a pilot program to integrate Sarasota County schools in 1963. “I was sitting in homeroom looking out of the window. A kid with a big German shepherd walked toward the building. I heard a loud pop. Six men racing toward me said ‘get in the center. Don't say anything. Follow us.' We went to the principal's office. They locked down the school to look for the student.” Willemina Thomas, a BHS classmate was also selected to participate in the SHS pilot program, but their paths never crossed. Clyburn, a behavioral psychologist was university director of learner affairs at Capella University.  

Sheila Sanders has a sweet smile but don't mistake it for weakness. She organized a boycott of the Sarasota Federal Bank as a third grader at Booker Elementary School. At that time, her class learned money management by filling out savings deposit slips for their pennies, dimes and nickels, but the students could not take tours of the bank as children from other schools did. Sanders persuaded her classmates to send deposits to Palmer Bank where they could tour.  Her actions foreshadowed future activism. The teenager proactively participated in the NAACP accompanying leaders John Rivers and Maxine Mays to local and state meetings. In high school, Sanders learned about the political process by reviewing the agenda of school board meetings and attended the meetings by taking the city bus. “Some things won't be said just because you're sitting there.”  Sanders, William “Flick” Jackson and John Rivers joined Dr. Edward E. James II as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the City of Sarasota. They successfully pushed for single member district voting that opened the way for African American representation on the Sarasota City Commission.

The memory of Sarasota Mayor Willie Charles Shaw is razor sharp.  He was reared in “Black Bottom,” a swampy land in Newtown near Maple, Palmadelia and Goodrich Avenues. There were no streetlights or curbside mail delivery. Overtown had its own neighborhood with the same name because of its rich black soil. Shaw can quickly rattle off the locations of community landmarks, dirt paths, swimming holes, citrus trees and bus routes; and the names of neighbors. Newtown's dusty roads were paved in 1968, but the first paved streets followed the route of the city transit bus. His grandmother and family members owned land along Orange Avenue and 31st Street. When there was a death in the neighborhood, Mrs. Herring, Fannie McDugle, and Mrs. James formed an unofficial neighborhood association with Mrs. Viola Sanders at the helm. The women collected food and flowers for grieving families. Shaw's mother sewed a heart or a ribbon on the right sleeve of the bereaved.   The retired letter carrier attended the Booker schools with teachers Barbara Wiggins, Mrs. McGreen, Prevell Carner Barber, Aravia Bennet Johnson, Foster Paulk, Esther Dailey, Coach Dailey, Janie Poe, and Turner Covington. “I would have to say that the entire learning experience at Booker groomed me into a leader. We were taught that you always had to be better, do better. You had to.”     Shaw was among the African American students who traveled on a bus across the Skyway Bridge to attend Gibbs Junior College. He served in the U.S. Air Force, then became a letter carrier following in the footsteps of Jerome Stephens, the first African American in Sarasota hired by the postal service.   

Fredd Atkins’ story is a testament to the power that teenagers have to shake up institutional systems. He was reared in an Augustine Quarters “shotgun shack” located behind Horn’s Grocery Store on 6thStreet in Overtown. For fun, Atkins played football and baseball on sandlots and dirt courts.A Booker High School teacher Rubin Mays, reassigned to SHS during integration was Atkins’ lifesaver. Sarasota High students from Newtown successfully changed the lunch menu, added African American cheerleaders to the squad and pushed school administrators to recognize African American history for a week. As a member of the NAACP’s youth council, Atkins registered voters in high school, and attended school board meetings. Activism continued in college. He conducted research for the Miami attorney who filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Sarasota. Atkins’ trajectory was established early. He is one of Sarasota’s longest serving city commissioners, having spent 18 years in public service. He was Sarasota’s mayor three times.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

“Ms. Vicky” is the founder of Dollar Dynasty, a nonprofit community outreach organization that doubles as a thrift store and a food distribution site for All Faiths Food Bank. She works to empower the Newtown community every day, embodying the mantra she remembers the elder women of Newtown had: “Help others to help themselves.” Ms. Vicky has lived in Newtown since the 1960s, back when segregation confined the community to its own, and its own flourished into a self-empowered, self-employed community.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

John Rivers is the former president of the NAACP's Sarasota Branch. He moved to Sarasota from Mobile, Alabama in 1951 in search of work to support his family. Instead, Mr. Rivers found himself in the midst of a struggle for racial equality. In the 1950s and 1960s, Sarasota was plagued with segregation, including the segregation of local beaches. Mr. Rivers took on the challenge of the fight for integration, and became a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Sarasota. Mr. Rivers acted as a leading force in ensuring that anyone, regardless of race, could enjoy the beauty of Sarasota's beaches.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Glossie Atkins laughs easily and sometimes uncontrollably at the thought of fun times in Overtown. The daughter of Jay and Nettie Campbell was born in Ocala on December 3, 1917. With her sister Ruby Horton as the leader, she left central Florida to work on a farm in Sarasota picking beans and tomatoes. “We filled a bushel basket of beans for two dollars each.” The unrelenting heat and worms on the plants forced a transition from fieldwork to housework. Horton then operated a café. “We had a good time,” Atkins said, bursting into laughter without offering too many details. She attended the oldest Black house of worship in town, Bethlehem Baptist Church.“Oh goodness, we had good service and the choir, everything was good.” The mother of Sarasota’s first African American mayor was a surrogate parent to neighbors’ children. For 35 years, she worked as a domestic sewing, cooking, cleaning and rearing other parents’ children. These days, she joins other mature women of Newtown to crochet scarves, quilts, and caps. “God has been good to me. Yep. Oh my goodness. I’ve come a long way. He brought me and still’s got me going strong.”Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Dr. Edward E. James II has been an active civil rights leader in the Newtown community since he was a college student at Florida A&M University. He was the producer and host of the local television show "Black Almanac" for 38 years and served as a columnist and governmental reporter for the Sarasota Journal newspaper. He was a writer/associate producer of "Positively Black," a half-hour TV show on New York's WNBC-TV, and also worked as an editorial assitant for the New York Post. He has received the President's Award, a Lifetime Service Award and a Freedom Award from the Sarasota County NAACP, and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Sarasota African-American Chamber of Commerce.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Mr. Harvin was born in Crescent City, Florida and moved to Sarasota in 1940 when he was five years old. He was the one of the first black bankers in Sarasota and he brought Salvation Army bell ringing to the Newtown community. He has lived in both the Newtown and “Overtown” communities, and he attends Bethlehem Baptist church, which is the oldest African-American church in Sarasota.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Henrietta Gayles and Gwendolyn Atkins were the first and second African American public health nurse in the Sarasota. Interviewer Vickie Oldham and Mrs. Atkins traveled from Sarasota to Ocala, Florida to visit Mrs. Gayles at an assisted living facility. In this episode we hear memories of their careers and lives that led them to Newtown and kept them tied to the area.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Lymus Dixon Jr. will be missed in and outside of the Newtown community. Before his death, we captured a discussion of his life in Newtown, and the deep ties that his family had to William and Marie Selby.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please take our brief survey.