Tustenegee 2020 Fall Vol 11 No 2

Published by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County

Vol. 11 No. 2 FALL 2020

C. Spencer Pompey: An Oral History Page 20

Growing Up in Canal Point Page 4

The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County Page 12

From the Editor Dear Reader, Lest you be alarmed that Rose Guerrero has been replaced, the news is far better: On August 9, Rose and her husband, Rick, welcomed our newest little history maker, baby Antero Daniel Guerrero, or “Arrow”!

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we asked the community to submit stories from their lives in Palm Beach County. Janette Campbell submitted “Growing Up in Canal Point” about her years growing up in the 1940s and ′50s on the east shore of Lake Okeechobee.

Tustenegee is a journal about Palm Beach County and Florida history and is published online twice a year by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.

The Historical Society of Palm Beach County is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to collect, preserve, and share the rich history and cultural heritage of Palm Beach County.

Historical Society of Palm Beach County Phone: (561) 832-4164 www.hspbc.org & www.pbchistoryonline.org Mailing Address: Historical Society of Palm Beach County PO Box 4364 West Palm Beach, FL 33402-4364 The contents of Tustenegee are copyrighted by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. All rights are reserved.

Reprint of material is encouraged; however, written permission from the Historical Society is required. The Historical Society disclaims any responsibility for errors in factual material or statements of opinion expressed by contributors. The contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the editors, board, or staff of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.

On the cover: C. Spencer Pompey. Courtesy HSPBC.

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While our schools are certainly undergoing big changes this fall, it is not the first time. In “The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County,” Lise Steinhauer explains how our Black community fought a court battle for almost two decades before desegregation was achieved. In a related piece, the fight for equal pay for Black teachers is part of an oral history from the Boynton Beach Library of C. Spencer Pompey, one of Palm Beach County’s civil rights activists and educators.

In our Spring issue, we asked for your help in identifying an image from our archives. Thanks to our wide audience, Elaine Arnold Saugstad got in touch and said that the gentleman pictured was her friend's father, William J. Manda, a horticulturalist known as the “King of Orchids.” Manda was believed to have over 6,000 orchid specimens in his West Palm Beach greenhouse. Thank you for your assistance in solving this mystery!

Debi Murray Chief Editor Chief Editor: Debi Murray Editor: Rose E. Guerrero Copy Editor: Lise M. Steinhauer Graphics and Layout: Rose E. Guerrero Printing: Kustom Print Design

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Table of Contents

20

12 44

36 Become a Part of History 4

Growing Up in Canal Point

36

Become a Member

12

The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County

42

Corporate Membership

C. Spencer Pompey: An Oral History

44

Photographic Collection

by Janette Campbell

by Lise Steinhauer

20

from the Boynton Beach Library

Have an abstract or an idea for an article?

Send us your ideas: rguerrero@hspbc.org

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Growing Up in Canal Point

By Janette Harrington Campbell All photos courtesy of author.

Since 1937, the Historical Society of Palm Beach County has collected, preserved, and shared the history of Palm Beach County. In April we sent out a call for you to share your own stories with us through Community Stories from Palm Beach County. The following story by Janette Harrington Campbell is her voice sharing her heritage, growing up in the Glades area in the 1940s and '50s.

You also have a history to share. Submit your story to info@hspbc.org, with the subject line "Community Stories from Palm Beach County."

G

rowing up in the Glades in the [19]40s and '50s was a time of innocence. It probably was much the same as in the rest of the country but with a few differences. In few other parts of the U.S. were you just an hour from the beach, and the Glades was probably the last settled frontier in the lower 48 states. It was certainly a different world.

Our lives moved from the era of radio to the era of television. In those days our all-cypress house had its

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windows opened to the elements. There was no air conditioning. Those who first air-conditioned their houses always seemed to get sick, at least that is what we believed, probably out of envy. During the '50s you could go to air-conditioned movie houses. The Palms and the [Florida Theatre] across from each other at the eastern end of Clematis or the Prince Theater in Pahokee were the ones we seemed to frequent. Probably my first picture show was Johnny

Appleseed. Disney cartoons were as much a favorite of my young life as for my children growing up in the VHS age. I remember Snow White, Dumbo, Song of the South, Bambi, and loved playing yellow plastic 45 rpm records on my little Victrola.

The Prince Theater held talent shows. I've been told that was where Mel Tillis got his start. He was quite a bit older than I so I didn't know him. However, I barely remember stopping at his uncle's bakery in Pahokee. My cousin took part in several of the talent shows, but I never had any talent to compete.

However, when I was four or five years old the Pahokee Lion's Club built a swimming pool for the community, and there was a grand celebration when it opened. My parents dressed me in a twopiece purple striped bathing suit. My daddy took a bell pepper and made it into a purse hanging from my wrist and cut an eggplant to fit on my head. I

entered the contest as "Little Miss Eggplant."

The swimming pool became the center of activity for many summers. All the children I went to school with took Red Cross swimming lessons summer after summer. Many also swam in the lake, but you certainly can't do it now because of the alligators.

The gators weren't as prevalent then. They were here but quite a bit rarer. It was unusual to see them except maybe in the ditches in the fields.

In those days winter vegetable farming was king in the Glades. Canal Point had quite a few small farmers who grew beans, eggplants, squash, bell peppers. I would ride in the back of my daddy's truck as he went around the bean fields. The pickers would fill their sacks with beans which would be taken to one of the many packing houses that then existed in the Glades.

There were three or four right here in Canal Point.

Now the buyers do all of their buying electronically

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Janette on far right as "Little Miss Eggplant."

but in those days, they would go from one packing house to another, standing around a pile of beans on the floor, and bid on them.

It was a fascinating time for this little girl to stand next to her dad in a group of men and listen to them calling out the bid, sounding much like what we've all seen on TV with tobacco or cattle auctions. The beans would then be shipped up to the northern markets by rail. The Glades fed the entire eastern coast of the U.S. during the wintertime.

As a farmer in those days of smaller population, my daddy knew other farmers all across the county and was well acquainted with Mr. Marvin Mounts, a well-beloved Palm Beach County agricultural agent.

Through him and also the agricultural teacher at Pahokee High School, Mr. Speer, he got to visit with Dr. Fairchild in Miami. Several of the plants in our yard came through those connections. Most of those plants are gone now, either due to the end of a long life or the hurricanes we have had in recent years. I have been told that it was a project of Mr. Speer, as a part of his vocational agricultural teaching, that the lovely royal palms which line the streets of Pahokee came to be planted.

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Janette's brother, Roswell (left), and sister, Nancy, in the bean field.

Daddy loved plants of all kinds, particularly tropical fruits and orchids. Over the years our yard contained all types of citrus (oranges, grapefruits, lemons, key limes, calamondins) as well as guavas, avocados, Surinam cherry, Barbados cherry, a tropical peach, jaboticabas, figs. He told me that during the Depression, you didn't have to worry about food if you lived in the Glades. The picture at the bottom is of his pride and joy, an orchid on a native tamarind tree. We lost the sixty-year-old tree when it fell into our house during Hurricane Jeanne in 2004.

An orchid on a native tamarind tree.

For over a decade my father was a school trustee representing this part of the county. That office was eliminated statewide many years ago. But it was because of that relationship that I also got to know Mr. Howell Watkins, as well as many of the school principals from across the county.

flooded but, because our house was built on what was the original shore of Lake Okeechobee, a sand ridge formed by the centuries of wave action piling the sand up, it was higher than the surrounding land and escaped the waters.

In 1947, the flood came. Water was right up to the back of our house. Many homes in Canal Point were

The summers also brought vacations – either to the mountains of North Carolina or the coast of Palm Beach County. To us in the Glades, a vacation many times meant a week or two at the beach. We usually stayed toward the north end of the county – Singer Island, Jupiter, or Juno Beach. Several summers it was at the Juno Ranch Motel. In those days it was a nice place for families. I remember my parents pointing out the dilapidated building on the dune that had at one time been the courthouse for Dade County. [Ed. It had been the Marcinski home.] Toward the late and early '60s my parents discovered McDonald's Villas on Singer Island. It grew to be our favorite and

Janette and her cousin Bill Jernigan behind their house after the flood.

The main residential area north of the canal known as the "townsite."

The 1947 Hurricane and Flood in Canal Point The decade of the '40s was a time of hurricanes.

We had forgotten until recently how deadly these creatures could be. These last few years reminded me of those storms. It seems like every summer there would be one approaching. Daddy would get out those wooden shutters and we would be in darkness while the wind raged. Sometimes neighbors stayed with us, spending the night until it was over.

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we spent many summers there. In those days it was pronounced "Ri-ver'a Beach," a three-syllable word.

I assume it is the advent of television that changed the pronunciation to its more elegant form.

The mountains of North Carolina really were a second Palm Beach County. In those days the license plates on cars began with a number indicating the county.

The first number of cars registered in Palm Beach County was six. If you drove through downtown Highlands, North Carolina, in the summer, almost all the cars parked on the street had Florida tags beginning with a six. Palm Beach Countians knew better than to stay here with the heat and mosquitoes in July and August.

My daddy came here in 1929, one year after the legendary hurricane. Out here you were considered a pioneer if you preceded the devastating '28 hurricane. So, I guess he wasn't a pioneer. Anyway, he came down to take a job as school principal at Moore Haven, on the other side of the lake, but he never made it there. He stayed right here in Postcard, circa 1931-1932.

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Canal Point where he already had a brother living, and eventually began farming. He said that for many years after that horrible storm, bodies would continue to be found as farmers cleared the ground for farming.

He told tales of his single days in the '30s.

Apparently, it was not unusual to go to Palm Beach for entertainment at that time. He enjoyed telling a story of buying a car from Marjorie Merriweather Post. Of course, he didn't deal with her or even meet her but some employee of hers handled the transaction.

My mother came ten years later and lived with her sister and brother-in-law. He was a chemist with what is now U. S. Sugar. Mother taught school at Canal Point Elementary for several years, even after their [wedding], until my appearance in their lives meant she would become a homemaker. Even though she lived with her sister, there was a building on the school grounds for teachers that needed a place to live, the "teacherage." It was not in use by

the time I started school in the fall of 1949 and was torn down several years later to make room for a new cafeteria.

Canal Point Elementary was small even by the standards of that day. It was for grades 1-8 and there was only one section of each grade. Still we got a great education and the greatest part was that we knew everyone and their families. Our families also knew most of our teachers. They usually lived right down the street from us. If they came from as far away as Pahokee or Indiantown, they still were well known in the community.

That togetherness of teachers and families is something that most towns don't get a chance to develop.

Also, my class was a cross-section of society, from the migrant farmworker to the children of doctors. We all were in the same school, the same class, and we benefitted from seeing differences and similarities.

West Palm Beach was the center of Palm Beach County, and Clematis Street was the shopping mall of those days. Even though we lived in the Glades, you could always run into someone you knew while shopping there. It might be your neighbor from down the street or another farmer's family you knew from Delray. It seemed that everyone came there. Mother's wedding and engagement ring came from Krauss's Jewelry store in the Comeau Building. In those days Anthony's catered to the entire family – the children's department was on the second floor and the men's was in a separate area to the east of the main part on the first floor.

We were on a first name basis with most of the clerks there. My prom dress for my junior year came from Norman's. Kresge's and Woolworth's were always fun for children. On one shopping excursion, I was supposed to be supervising my My parents married little sister, four Top: Janette's first-grade class of 1950-51 with Mrs. Loel Lence, in 1941. Until the years younger teacher. day he died my daddy than me, while Bottom: Janette's parents at Blowing Rocks in Jupiter. carried these pictures at the dime store. in his wallet of the two Of course we got of them at Blowing Rocks in Jupiter from during separated and she got scared. Then it was just a their "courting days." (That is the language of that scary event. Now it is considered much worse. One generation). It was a favorite memory. Many times of the most exciting events on that street was when they mentioned having eaten at the Dubois place in Burdine's opened its new store. The excitement was Jupiter. I assume there was a restaurant there run by that it had an escalator, the first one most of us had Mrs. Dubois. ever seen! Before then, any store that had a second

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floor had an elevator. I seem to remember that at one time Anthony's had a man who operated the elevator for the patrons.

Any family trip to "town" was not complete without barbecue beef sandwiches from the Hut. We never had to get out of the car because the girl brought the trays to us. Daddy rolled down his window to hold the tray and we would eat. Boy, do I miss them!

Lunch in West Palm usually meant fried shrimp at the Patio. It was one block north of Clematis, just north of the Comeau Building. Many of the lawyers and professionals who worked in that area seemed to lunch there.

Actually we didn't really need to go to West Palm Beach. We had most everything we needed right here. Canal Point had two doctors, a drug store, two

or three grocery stores, quite a few gas stations. I remember there was a time when Mother could get her groceries delivered. She just called up the grocer with her list and they came right to the house! I would love that now. Mother really never learned how to pick out her meat until after I was grown.

You just went to the store and told Mr. Echols that you needed a roast to feed four people and he cut it, wrapped it, and gave it to you. You knew his meat was good quality and that was all you needed to know.

School trips in those days were not as complicated as they are today. You just got the room mothers together and they drove us in their cars to wherever we were going. Our fifth-grade teacher encouraged our artwork, so of course that meant a trip to the Norton. Other field trips were to Ancient America, a

The Hut showing people sitting at the soda fountain. ca. 1942 - 1945. Courtesy HSPBC.

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nearby automobile collection in Hypoluxo, and Africa USA in Boca Raton. Whenever we had family visiting us for any length of time, that meant another visit to these places as well.

For us the newspaper meant the Palm Beach Post, the Miami Herald, or the Miami News. I can still hear the sing-song voice of the man who used to stand outside Morrison's cafeteria about a half block south of Clematis saying "Mi-a'-mi Dai'-ly News-paper." He really drug out that first syllable of "newspaper."

We were one of the few families that didn't have a party-line on their telephone. Daddy explained that it was due to he and Mother having been "spotters" during World War II. During that time there was a great fear of invasion by the Germans, probably due to the number of German ships that had been seen off the coast. Volunteers were assigned to watch from on top of the dike for German planes flying this far inland. So, my parents had to have a telephone in order to report any findings. They apparently were one of the first to get one. When going through our parents' things after they died, we found the arm bands identifying them as spotters, and I have kept the book they were to use to identify the planes. Our first phone number was 698.

Later a 5 went in front and finally when I was in high school it became 924-5698, but you really didn't need to dial the 9 and 2.

Community life in Canal Point in those days centered around church and school. Most everyone either went to the Baptist Church or the Methodist Church.

Civic organizations included the Lions Club, the Garden Club, and the PTA. (I know PTA isn't usually considered a civic club but here it was.) In the early '50s, the Canal Point Lions Club enlisted help from our local county commissioner, Paul Rardin, to build a community building and playground. (In those days

we were always represented by a county commissioner who lived in the Glades.) With the Lions Club's leadership, this became a big community event and the dedication was celebrated by everyone. That building is still widely used by people from all over the Glades and needs to be rented well in advance for any event. We children loved the swings and the two slides, one small and one which seemed gigantic at the time. Liability issues today would never permit one of that size. We didn't worry about those things then--my parents took care of my punishment when, unbeknownst to them, I helped my little brother go down the "big" slide.

Not only was Mr. Rardin our county commissioner, but he had followed Mr. Howard Sharpe as the publisher of our local newspaper, The Everglades News.

The byline for the paper said, "The distinguished man prefers the provinces,” as I recall. In those days the paper told you who was going on vacation and where, who had just given a party, and all the full details of any local weddings.

Palm Beach County law enforcement was quite a bit different in those days. If I remember correctly, we had one deputy, Frank O'Connell, in the area. He may have been responsible for the entire Glades. Now you see two or three every few miles.

I never will forget the first time I heard a foreign language. We were on a family vacation to Key West in 1955, and of course the car was not air-conditioned.

On our way through Miami, we stopped at an intersection and we could hear two women standing on the sidewalk and visiting with each other. I couldn't understand a word they said! My parents explained the problem to me; they were speaking in Spanish. It is a completely different world now.

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The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County

by Lise M. Steinhauer

Based on Lise M. Steinhauer's “‘Wait’ Has Almost Always Meant ‘Never’”: The Long Road to School Desegregation and New Black Frontiers in Palm Beach County,” in Old South, New South, or Down South: Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement (West Virginia University Press, 2012).

“‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never,’” Dr. Martin

the Confederacy’s demise. The part of Florida’s fast-

Luther King Jr. lamented in 1963, while urging

growing population that made its way increasingly

his peers not to delay public school desegregation

further south—more so from the North, Midwest,

as mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954

and Northeast—reached a clean slate for social

order in Brown v. Board of Education. In Palm Beach

behavior. Pioneers depended on one another in the

County, that wait would be nearly two decades.1

subtropical wilderness, though each widely spaced community was unique. By 1954, Palm Beach

Palm Beach County had never been rabidly “Old

County was a constantly changing population with

South,” as its development was minimal until after

differing backgrounds who had arrived at different

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times. This lack of homogeneity and shared history

School. In 1954 he arrived in West Palm Beach and

brought with it a variety of views.

became William Holland’s partner.2

Two young men raised in other parts of Florida had

Just three months earlier, in Brown v. Board of

met on a train in 1941. William M. Holland, from

Education, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared:

Orlando, and Isiah “I. C.” Smith, from Lake Helen,

“In the field of education, the doctrine of ‘separate

were both bound for all-Black Florida A&M College

but equal’ has no place" and ruled it unconstitutional.

in Tallahassee. They discussed how to effect change

Desegregation was required, yet no

in the schools, and, Smith later said, “We decided

deadline was provided to abide by this ruling.

that we’d go to law school.” After A&M, Holland

Florida Attorney General Richard Ervin assured the

attended Boston University Law School, and after

public that Florida would play a part in setting the

World War II, he opened the first Black law practice

conditions and timing.3

timeline or

in West Palm Beach. Another Black attorney, F. Malcolm Cunningham, opened an office across the

Just

after

the

street. Smith, who had interrupted his time at A&M

Superintendent of Public Instruction Thomas

with military service, went on to Brooklyn Law

D. Bailey said, “My presumption is that Negroes

Brown

announcement,

State

attending a good school are going to prefer to remain there.” Palm Beach County’s all-Black schools were closely related to their churches, homes, and struggle for dignity. Spencer Pompey called all-Black Roosevelt High School one of the best high schools in Florida. His wife, teacher H. Ruth Pompey, explained: “They used to say to us a lot, you’ve got to be better prepared to get a job than the White child has, because their parents own the jobs.” Norman Walker, from Roosevelt’s Class of 1960, recalled that academics were always a priority, but so were respect, discipline, and self-esteem. “We had teachers who believed in us and taught us to believe in ourselves.”

Classmate Reddick Fleming agreed: “We just knew the world was changing, but we did not want to lose our Roosevelt.”4 Black schools delivered a high-quality education, William Holland Sr. Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

but they did so with a handicap. William Holland

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observed: “The textbooks for White and ‘Negro’

entrance to Northboro in 1956. When they denied

students were kept in different warehouses . . . . [O]

him again in 1957, Holland and Smith were ready

ur supplies were handed down from White schools.

and filed a class-action suit the next morning. The

Our books were out of date with pages missing. The

resulting 1958 ruling ordered the County Board

blackboards were so old, they had holes in them.”

of Public Instruction to “make ‘a prompt and

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1955, dubbed

reasonable start,’ and then proceed to ‘a good faith

Brown II, addressed school inequalities. Palm Beach

compliance at the earliest practicable date.’”6

County instituted a building program that, according to Spencer Pompey, “all

Palm

but equalized the facilities

incentive to change when a 1961

in Black schools,” making

federal court order resulted from

many Blacks less interested

Holland’s lawsuit. It required

in integration. Their goal

that

was not necessarily to share

permitted to attend the schools

White classrooms, but to

nearest their homes, if they

have their level of funding

so requested and there was

and

Brown II

available space. To comply,

also required “a reasonable

Palm Beach County offered the

and prompt start” toward

Freedom-of-Choice Plan. Eighty-

full compliance with the

seven Black students applied

1954 ruling—still a vague

for transfer to White schools.

timetable.5

Four were approved. Yvonne

materials.

Beach

County

secondary

found

students

be

Lee Odum, accepted to Seacrest Although

local

Black

organizations worked toward desegregation, no member wanted their child to be a test

High in Delray Beach, described Iris Hunter Etheredge was the first Black student to attend Jupiter High School in 1961. Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

case toward compliance with

then-principal Robert Fulton as “fair and sincere.” In 1964 he was elected superintendent of schools.7

Brown. In 1956 Holland’s son, William Jr. (“Billy”), was of school age. Holland bought a lot and built

In New Orleans, the court assigned to enforce Brown

his home just inside the boundary for all-White

in Florida ordered that desegregation begin by

Northboro Elementary. In response, the County

1964 and be complete by 1967. And in Washington,

moved the line enough that Holland remained in

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act

the Black school district, so the County denied Billy

of 1964. These actions laid a path for Superintendent

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From left William Holland Jr. and father, William Holland [Sr.], civil rights attorney fought for his son's right to attend White schools. Photo taken June 27, 1984. Courtesy Miami Herald Collection, HSPBC.

Fulton to effect change. He convinced Black and

By March 1966, U.S. Commissioner of Education

White teachers to create the Palm Beach County

Harold Howe II found Title VI of the Civil Rights

Classroom Teachers Association, which became

Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in

a catalyst for calm. The group supported Fulton’s

federally assisted programs, an effective weapon as

Three-Year Plan for gradual desegregation. Fulton

he threatened and urged districts toward integration.

declared at a press conference: “We are not all made

Although Palm Beach County had pledged

alike. However . . . our way of life does seek to offer

compliance with Howe’s demands, in 1967 only

all Americans equal opportunities under the law.” In

Jupiter High School had achieved full desegregation,

1965, although Palm Beach County reported only

and all Black schools remained open. When the

137 of its 15,000 minority students attending mostly-

District was called before the U.S. Department of

White schools, they earned an “integrated” status for

Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) the following

eleven of its 102 schools.

year, HEW’s lead investigator delivered a confusing

8

message: “There is nothing wrong with maintaining

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Black high schools in Palm Beach County. I am

“taking out our top Black [teachers] and putting

only interested in having the board meet Title VI

them in White schools.” Below admitted that was

provisions.”

true and described the inaction that had delayed

9

desegregation: “Most plans have been developed to Back in Palm Beach County, the biracial United

circumvent integration. . . . I am one of the educators

Guidance Council (UGC) met with School

who hasn’t had guts enough to stand up to the man

Superintendent Lloyd Early, Deputy Superintendent

on the street and say it has got to go this way for

Russell Below, and School Board Attorney Michael

good education.” Yet, UGC’s White co-chair Leo

Jackson. UGC’s Black co-chair, John Cartwright,

Schwack saw progress: “Could you look back at any

asserted that Black students chose White schools

time in the past when a group such as this could sit

to get a quality education because the District was

down with a so-called ‘power structure’ [and] get

(L to R), School Board Attorney Michael Jackson and William Holland Sr. Photo taken July 21, 1971. Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

16 | TUSTENEGEE

responses? Everything we have gone through has

"I am sure that the [School Board] cared, but . . .

not been in vain.”10

It was delayed and delayed and delayed by excuses and reasons that were not real.” The messages to

By the end of the 1969-70 school year, only one

school officials were also changing, inconsistent, and

formerly all-Black school in Palm Beach County

contradictory, giving the White power structure no

remained above ninety percent Black. Few were

compelling reason to desegregate immediately, or

celebrating. While many Blacks had protested the

even a decade, after Brown. The issue is complex and

delays, others grieved over their loss of identity.

defies easy characterization.13

White parents were angry, too, when their children were bused to Black neighborhoods. The relative

What is clear is that the price demanded of Blacks

calm that had prevailed ended for a time as both

had been great. Their high schools were gone, their

races resisted the changes.11

teachers and principals were relocated, their students were bused to formerly all-White schools, and

On July 9, 1973, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph

community activities that had been part of school

Eaton issued the final ruling in the Holland case,

were over. Retired Black principal U. B. Kinsey said

which had been filed in 1958. He declared Palm

that a sense of community was destroyed in the name

Beach County School District to be officially

of racial equality, and that integration did as much

integrated, although it was monitored until 1999,

harm as it did good.14

when it was judged “appropriate steps” had been taken. “Wait” had not meant “never,” but it had

William Holland died in 2002 and I.C. Smith in

meant nineteen years, and then some.12

2012. Dr. Joseph Orr, the first president of Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association,

EPILOGUE

recalled after Holland’s death, “Bill was the most

Palm Beach County’s leaders were possibly not as

dedicated of all of us, and he took the most flak

racially motivated as some believed. The local history

because he got the most exposure.” Holland’s “flak”

of relatively harmonious race relations, cohesive and

included death threats and attacks on his home with

dignified Black community, and evolving “Yankee

bottles and explosives. Billy Holland had remained

factor” in the 1960s may have accounted for this

in all-Black schools until 1963, when a court ruling

in part. Edward Eissey, principal of Palm Beach

allowed him to be one of six Black students at Central

Gardens High School in the early 1970s, said later:

Junior High School.15

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Endnotes 1 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail to the Fellow Clergymen," April 16, 1963, in Letters of a Nation: A Collection of Extraordinary American Letters, ed. Andrew Carroll (New York: Broadway Books, 1999).

2 I.C. Smith, interview by author, 2005.

3 Chief Justice Earl Warren in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 Sup. Ct.686 (1954); "New Hearings Set on How to Effect Ruling," Palm Beach Post, May 18, 1954.

4 St. Augustine Record, 19 May 1954; C. Spencer Pompey, More Rivers to Cross: A Forty-Year Look at the Quest for Fair and Equitable Fulfillment of the "American Dream," 1940-1980 (West Palm Beach: Star Group, 2003); H. Ruth Pompey, interview by Nancy Stein, 2004, Oral History Collection, Florida Atlantic University; William Cooper Jr., "Reunion Renews Black School Ties," Palm Beach Post, August 7, 2005.

5 "William Holland, Civil Rights Champion, Dies," Palm Beach Post, July 25, 2002; Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955); Pompey, More Rivers.

6 I.C. Smith interview; Holland v. The Board of Public Instruction of Palm Beach County, 258 F. 2nd 730, (1957), No. 16897, U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit, August 25, 1958.

7 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Survey of School Desegregation in the Southern and Border States, 1965-1966, Feb. 1966; Yvonne Lee Odom, interview, n.d., Kitty Oliver Oral Histories Collections on Race and Change, African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 8 Palm Beach County School Board, Report to U.S. Office of Civil Rights, 1965; Pompey, More Rivers; Survey of School Desegregation.

9 Pompey, More Rivers; B. Carleton Bryant, "With More Than Deliberate Speed: A Historical Study of Six Major Issues in Seondary Education in Palm Beach County, Florida 1954-1971 From a Black Perspective" (Ph.D. diss., Florida Atlantic University 1975); Robbie T. Littles, Report to the United Front, December 12, 1968.

10 "United Guidance Counsil," in Bryant, "Deliberate Speed."

11 IPET-ISUT Historical Preservation Foundation. "Commemorating the 50th Anniversary Brown v. Board of Education." 2004, http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/AfricanAmerican/documents/ BrownvBoardPBCTimeline.pdf (accessed September 15, 2005); "Official: More 'Misplaced' Students Than Boycotters," Palm Beach Post, September 11, 1971.

12 Mary Ellen Flannery, "William Holland, Civil Rights Champion, Dies," Palm Beach Post, July 25, 2002.

13 Edward M. Eissey, interview with author, January 17, 2006, Oral History Collection, Historical Society of Palm Beach County.

14 Michael Browning, "Brown vs. Board of Education," Palm Beach Post, May 14, 2004.

15 Flannery, "William Holland."

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William Holland Sr. holds up scrapbook with newspaper clippings of his life's work. Photo taken September 11, 1986. Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

About the Author

Lise M. Steinhauer joined the staff of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County in 2015 as Membership Coordinator, and has since added Grant Writer and Museum Store Manager to her roles. Under her company History Speaks, she has conducted oral histories for the HSPBC since 2004, provided the original content for Palm Beach County History Online (pbchistoryonline.com), and created the Docent Manual for the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, among many projects. Among her published works are Alexander W. Dreyfoos: Passion & Purpose and A Photographic Odyssey: Around the World with Alexander W. Dreyfoos. Lise holds a Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies.

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C. Spencer Pompey (1915-2001) An Oral History

From the Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives Edited for publication by Lise M. Steinhauer

C. Spencer Pompey, former Palm Beach County educator, sits in front of his version of the Champion’s Hall of Fame. Hanging on his wall are group pictures of all the champion teams that he coached when he was teaching.

Photo taken January 17, 1986. Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

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Introduction

C. Spencer Pompey was an educator, writer, and civil rights activist. He taught at Poinciana Junior High in Boynton Beach, Carver and Seacrest/Atlantic high schools in Delray Beach, and Carver Middle School. He was associate editor of Like a Mighty Banyan: Contributions of Black People to the History of Palm Beach County and wrote a memoir, More Rivers to Cross, which was published posthumously. He fought for equality based on race, especially in the Palm Beach County school system. Pompey received many awards, including the Old School Square (Delray Beach) Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Black Floridians Hall of Fame.

THE INTERVIEW

November 13, 1996 Interviewer: Arleen Dennison Other Voices: Elizabeth Jenkins (1922-2015) Interviewer: My name is Arleen Dennison. We're at Poinciana Elementary School with Mr. Spencer Pompey. When did your family come to BoyntonDelray?

Pompey: I came to town in 1939 and taught two years as principal of Washington Junior High School in Riviera. At that particular time, we had organized the Palm Beach County Teachers Association, and we brought suit against the county school board organization of teachers. In 1941 the superintendent moved me from that school and appointed me the principal here at Poinciana. At that time the school was, I guess, three rooms, and there was no such thing as Congress or Seacrest Avenue, but it was on both sides. The people were very, very supportive of the school. I recall—and maybe this wasn't very pleasant—there was a family that lived within here, and at that time, the principal would get up and ring that bell. Those Watsons lived right next door and would hear the bell, but they were never on time.

There were kids who lived back up near the railroad.

There were three or four very distinguishing things about the Delray Beach-Boynton community, in that there were four or five families that had eight or ten children, some of whom are very well respected in this community now—the Andrews family, I stayed

there. The principal or head teacher stayed in the home. Eddie Mitchell, who is retired now, I stayed at his house. He was a little boy going to school at that particular time, and this wasn't too far from the church. Reverend Porter was the pastor at that particular church, but the people were very supportive of it. The Raymond family, I guess must have been ten in that family. There were four or five of us that used to talk about how many children they had.

The Thompson family, Betty's daddy, Grummond was his name. He was a young Grummond. There must've been—Grummond elder had 10 or 12 of them at that particular time.

Interviewer: What was Poinciana School called when you were here?

Elizabeth Jenkins: In 1947 it was called Boynton Beach Colored School.

Pompey: That's right. As a matter of fact, the county's process in naming schools at that time was with respect to either the geography or some plant.

They had not gotten to the point, and when they finally did give this a name, the Poinciana was a very prominent flower down this way. But at that time, they designated them by plants.

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Interviewer: When you came to Florida in 1939, where did you get your college education?

Pompey: I am a native Floridian, that's a rarity. I was born in Baker County. You know where that is? It's Macclenny up in the panhandle section of Florida.

My father died in 1920 and left my mother with five children, living in Jacksonville when he died. I didn't know that I was culturally deprived until David [Riesman] wrote this book [The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character] here in the ’70s [originally published in 1950] in which he claims that single parents were the worst thing in the world.

All I knew is that my mother intended for us to go to school. The fact that there was no money—I am a Depression kid and you had to worry. So, I attended a school in Live Oak called Florida Memorial College [now Florida Memorial University in Miami], and my mother had attended that school. At that time, it was called Florida Baptist Institute. It was actually one of the first colleges established in the state for Blacks at that time. Florida Memorial College was where I graduated. It wasn't a college; you could start in the fourth grade.

Jonathan Gibbs served as Florida's Secretary of State from 1867 to 1873 and Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1873 until his death Aug. 14, 1874.

Courtesy Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida.

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Let me back up a little and give you the setting.

The state public school system had been organized

by Jonathan Gibbs who, incidentally, was Black, and this is not known by many, that the first state superintendent was a Black. Gibbs set up the school system, but they only provided for three months of school. This is for White or Black; it didn't make any difference at that particular time. But later they began to set the schools up, and you could go to school from fourth grade all the way up to what was called an associate’s degree. That's what I did. Because this school was such a small school and everything, it didn't certify you to teach. So then, I hitchhiked from Live Oak, that's my home, to Daytona Beach, and there spent a semester [at] what I consider the greatest educator that Florida has turned out, Mary McCloud Bethune, taught a year. I was the principal of a school at 19 years of age. I had a student in the school, a girl who was 23. It was a two-teacher school. I taught as the head teacher, 5,6,7, and 8th grade, all the subjects.

Interviewer: How many students were in the class?

Pompey: Well, we didn't have many—twenty. I learned something that stuck with me the rest of my teaching career and that was this: As I said, there was a girl in there that was 23, and I was trying to make sure I could get her to learn, and we were dealing with fractions. And I spent, I guess, almost half a day seeing that I could make her learn. But here's what happened: had four or five fights, all kind of disruption that taught me. That kid went to sleep, and I said, if I am going to be a successful teacher, then you're not gonna ignore those who can't learn or are slow, but you've got to take care of those kids who are sharp; otherwise, they're going to just—. So, as a teacher, I had to do it on an individual basis. I got a charge out of trying to teach the individual capacity of the kid and not to be disturbed on disruptions.

Then I taught a year; they paid me $50 a month.

That's not so bad, if you consider my mother had been a teacher and started teaching in 1923, and she made $40 a month, so I was making $10 more a month than my mother.

whose name was John I. Leonard. Dr. Leonard sent Pompey: My father went to Tuskegee [Institute] me a telegram and offered me a job for $75 a month. and was a nurseryman. He studied under George [inaudible] It was $90 a month but it came down to Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. So, $75. You may snicker about it today at $75, but Palm education was something that we were expected to Beach County was one of the best paying counties, be a part of. There was no question in our minds but not only in the state of Florida but in the South. When that we'd be going to go to school and finish. We just I graduated from [ Johnson] C. Smith, I had a job had that. I came down, left teaching for one year, offer in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, then went to [ Johnson] and Florida. I chose C. Smith University Florida cause it was in Charlotte, North the highest paying.

Carolina, for two We came down years. So, I finished here—1939 was high school in 1932 a crucial time in and went to Bethune the world. Franco, Cookman in 1936 for Mussolini, Hitler—it a semester, then went was just ravishing the to [ Johnson} C. Smith, world. So, there was and finished in 1939. a certain degree of It took me seven years fatalism developing to finish college. And in those of us who I was valedictorian of were in college. My my class, so it wasn't father's brother had a question of ability— gone to the service and yet it was much in World War I. easier, I think, then President Wilson than it is today, I said, if you want to really believe. I could make the world safe go to the president's [for] democracy— office and talk to the yet I was determined, president and I went to I was a radical. the Bethune Cookman We figured we had College in New to do something Orleans, and I was and in doing that, able to get an audience as we went in the with the president and Palm Beach County Superintendent, John I. Leonard. Courtesy communities, we Samuel R. Quincey Collection, HSPBC. tell her I had to go to thought that it was our school and didn't have job to: 1) see that the any money. She had the NYA—National Youth kids go to school, 2) try to get them involved and Administration—give me a job, but you couldn't get vote. I wouldn't change a bit of that. to a president now. So, things were much easier, I think.

Interviewer: Did you have to do a lot of recruiting to get children to come to school?

Well, when I came down to Palm Beach County in 1939, I received a telegram from the superintendent, Pompey: Yes, what I'd say is that most parents, at

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least Black parents, wanted their kids to be educated, but the question, of course, was whether or not they could afford it. If you do any serious research, you will find that the period from the Emancipation Proclamation till 1900, when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Black people had an illiteracy rate in the 90[th percentile]. But in the span of fifty years, this had been reduced, so no progress had been achieved anywhere by any group if you look at that from right there.

I remember very pointedly right at this school—when I say “this school,” I mean Boynton School—two farmers down here. One named Dewitt, easy great person, and the other the Lyman brothers parked their trucks right next to the school to pick up kids to let them go out in the bean fields. Well, I'm very fiery if didn't know any better, so I went out there to call the superintendent. How am I gonna get these kids to go to school when they put a truck out there to pick them up? Here's what he said to me, and I never forgot it, and it too affected my career. How do I get these kids to go to school when the truck and haul right down here in front of the school? And I said, he wouldn't do that anywhere else. Well Dr. Leonard said this: "Pompey! You don't vote." That was one of the things I liked about Leonard. I got along with him well, even when we brought the suit, because you could get in his office behind closed doors. Well anyway, I told him that I thought he wasn't gonna do anything, then I said I had to get to the community.

One way you can stop the man, I said, don't get

Riviera Beach High School ca. 1960s. Courtesy HSPBC.

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on the truck. We came down and organized the Teachers Association at that time.

Interviewer: From where? From Boynton or from your school?

Pompey: No, I was first in Riviera, and then they moved me down here. But while I was up in Riviera the first two years, we organized the Palm Beach County Teachers Association. We decided that we would bring suit. We hired a young fellow from New York by the name of Thurgood Marshall to handle our case, and Marshall came down. There were 105 Black teachers out of 400 and some, and 95 of them were members of this organization that we'd organized. Foolishly, they elected me president.

Well, we were younger, and we didn't have much to lose. We were not the first people to bring a suit.

Interviewer: What did the suit say?

Pompey: Well you see, as a Black, as I say, my salary was $75 a month. A White teacher similarly qualified would receive $125 a month. And as I said before, Palm Beach County was one of the better paying counties. So, we decided to organize ourselves and ask for certain things. Thurgood Marshall, he's a member of NAACP, and all of us, the Black teachers, were card-carrying members with the NAACP. One of the things that were required to become a member of the Palm Beach County Teachers Association was not only were you a member of the NAACP, but you had to register to vote. We just insisted. Voting was a very important thing, and when Marshall came down and found out we had 95 of the 105 teachers for the organization—he had brought a suit in Maryland, but it wasn't a class action, it was an individual suit [by Donald Murray]. Now, I would be less than honest if l said that we decided to insist on a class action suit because of our smartness. But there was a suit brought by a fellow named

[Noah Griffin] in Pinellas County, and he brought it into local [state] court. And the School Board fired [Griffin], and that was the suit. There was a fellow [Vernon McDaniel] in Escambia County who filed a suit, and then there were three fellows in Brevard County filed a suit: Harry T. Moore, Ponce de Leon Williams, and John Gilbert. But they filed in the state courts. [ Johnson] C. Smith was a Presbyterian school, a private school, one of the few Black schools in the United States where you could get some teaching in political science. You see, the South was very peculiar about this, not even the White schools, the southerners were very ingenious to this extent.

[Smith?] sent his kids to northern schools, but in the local schools, University of Florida and whatever, he didn’t get much of that. One of the schools I attended was [ Johnson] C. Smith Presbyterian School. We got a benefactor by the name of Duke.

Duke had founded Duke University. [Note: James B. Duke funded Trinity University, which was then renamed.] They had all this money up there, so he turned and gave some to our school. Well, because we had the opportunity in taking a course in political science, we were a little bit more conservative, and one of the things that we were taught was [that] as a teacher, we'd get in the community. Voting was the most important. As you went out to teach in the community, we used the time to shake the bushes, and that meant all of us, whatever community we'd been in.

The other thing that was to our advantage was the court in 1895 and the Plessy v. Ferguson case, “separate but equal.” As we discussed this in school, we came upon the conclusion, and this was one of [Thurgood] Marshall’s theses, even when he got to be on the Supreme Court, that Americans have one thing that can really get the attention of people in the United States. Now let's take this case itself, when they decided “separate but equal.” When [we] got equalization of teachers, we had to promise [Marshall], when he took our case, that we would also bring suit so we could attend these colleges in Florida.

He wasn't sure that he was gonna be favored with the judge, John [Marshall] Harlan [II] [grandson of the only dissenting judge in Plessy v. Ferguson]. The case was held in Ft. Pierce. We knew nothing about it.

All we knew was what we called “Monday morning jesters.” If you got drunk over the weekend, they put you in jail, and by Monday you had court and you were back in town. But those of us who had gone to study had a little different view. Physically, there was a [segregation] in the separate-but-equal doctrine, because if you go and obey the law, they can keep this new law—you had to have teachers.

Now, Florida had passed this law in which they decided that no one [Black] could teach. See, they forbid White ladies from teaching in Black schools, and yet during the Reconstruction period, that's how education began. People came down and taught in school. But then they passed this law—the “Sheats law,” we called it, he was our superintendent—in which they forbid Whites from teaching Blacks.

That meant that if Whites could not teach Blacks or couldn't teach in Black schools, then you developed a cadre of Blacks who were teachers, and a different type of teacher than you had among Whites. The public school—and you might not agree with this— the public school teachers were highly feminized at that particular time. And the persons who taught— Whites, I mean—were teaching long enough to get their husbands through college, and then they were gonna go home. Therefore they were not—I don’t mean they weren’t good teachers, [but] their work was strictly teaching. They didn’t need to talk about voting, because they had every other thing. It was easier, a different type of person teaching. [Note: Sheat’s law was named after William N. Sheats (18511922), Florida’s first elected superintendent of public instruction. An ardent segregationist in 1913, he worked to get "Sheat's Law” passed in Florida, which banned “White persons from teaching Negroes in Negro schools,” and also prohibited Black teachers from educating White students.]

The other thing was, when Marshall brought his suit—I can remember as if it were yesterday. It was

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Ft. Pierce, and Judge Harlan [II] was a New Yorker, he was a no-nonsense judge. This was the first time in the United States that the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause was asked to be used.

The question that was asked was “Whom do you represent?” Marshall said that I represent all the teaching personnel in Palm Beach County that is Negro. At that time, that was the term we were able to use. We got to be African American two to three years ago. When he made that statement, we had responses objected to it. Velma King represented the Florida Education Association, C. D. Blackwell representing Palm Beach County. Then you had Robert Shackleford, who was the [ally] of all the lawyers. He was perhaps the best constitutional lawyer that Florida had at that time. Well, he represented the State Board of Education. We had three people ganging up on this one. You can imagine how we felt sitting [there], and he started ganging up on Marshall. Marshall was a terrific actor. He would get up as if he were to object, and we'd pull on him and he sit back down. But we didn't know he was acting. Finally, they made all these protests against him and so forth, and Judge Harlan [II] said that he would let him make his point, and he'd give a ruling

later on. So, they were able to let Marshall give a litany of how things were. We were hired, we were teaching at the same schedule, we were at different schools, but we went to school at the same time, and he got all the points out, despite the objections and the like. Finally, I guess by the time we got to our recess, he said he would make a ruling as to what he would do. So, we didn't know whether the people ganged up on Marshall or beat him over the head or what.

So, Marshall came out there and said, I think the judge is gonna hear—see, we'd never been in court and given the situation—the judge held it. This was historically perhaps one of the most important cases under what is called “stare decisis”; that is, if a judge makes a ruling, they leave that standing. He accepts a precedent for them to go to another court. Now, Marshall had not had this type of thing before, so when Judge Harlan [II] entertained and finally told that he thought it had merit, [Marshall] was able to take the case in Florida and go to South Carolina [Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al.], and from South Carolina to [Ropa?] and Washington D.C. [Boiling v. Sharpe], and then [Ropa?] to Brown. That was what made

C. Spencer Pompey, kneeling at right, coaching a high school football team.

Courtesy Spady Cultural Heritage Museum.

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it important. But the strangest thing was that if you look in the—you can see I’m a little bit excited about it, because none of the records, if you go to the newspaper—a poll was taken in 1942. You just didn't— Interviewer: You didn’t read about it?

Pompey: Not at all.

Interviewer: What year was this?

Pompey: 1942. You just didn’t—and they kept it that way. I never will forget. Anyway, teachers organized because of the fact that we didn't want the communities to feel we were doing it just because of us. Marshall made us promise that if the judge favorably heard his prayer for the equalization of teachers’ salaries, he had already brought a suit. The court had sustained it, in this particular suit, if you couldn't provide—they weren’t going to let me go to University of Florida. Then [they] would pay [my] way to go to some other school. He wanted someone to test it. Since we were the first organized group that he'd run into, he made us promise to do that. Again, this was among Blacks, so it was sort of favoritism.

What the heck. So, when he got out of this suit, Marshall asked if we had checked to see if we could go to UF. So the person who initiated it, it was my job.

We went to it and so forth and finally—see, the judge did one thing, he didn't rule, but he left standing that the School Board agreed not to base the salary on race and have a single salary schedule. I’ll never forget what he said. He said, whatever standards you have applied equally to both races. If the School Board decided to make as a requirement the person to roll a peanut with his nose, he said that if it applied to both Black and White it was all right. I thought of that because gee whiz, my nose is much flatter than somebody else's is, but anyway, judge told me that they were gonna work out a salary schedule. The School Board did that.

Interviewer: Did you get a raise?

Palm Beach County School Board Superintendant Howell L. Watkins. Courtesy Howell L. Watkins Family Collections, HSPBC.

Pompey: Well, yes, but not immediately. The judge said you had to have a single salary schedule. But what they did was order that, then work it out. There were five classifications. They got a committee to come up and look at it. There were no persons in Class 1. There were no Blacks in Class 1 or 2. There were no Whites in Class 1. There were three Whites in Class 2. There were three Blacks in Class 3. The majority of Whites were in Class 4 and 5. No Blacks were in [4 and 5]. Of course, the judge, when he saw, he used the word, he saw a lot of glitches in it. He trusted us to work them out. It all worked out before the opening of the school term. He came back down in August, and we found out that they had worked on a single salary schedule, those five classifications, and if the majority of Black teachers were in the poorest paying section, there were no Whites in it. We all got a raise. As president of the Teachers Association— after that time the School Board had not recognized the Palm Beach County Teachers Association, that was one of the strategies used in those days—. If you don't recognize the existence of a group, they

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became a non-entity, [they] just don't exist. The United States did the same thing, you recall, when we didn’t recognize the existence of China. China had more people, three or four times more people than the United States, but we just—they didn’t exist.

[The School Board] had a single salary schedule, but [the judge] left [it] under his advisement, and we used that until 1967 or so to work out deals with the School Board.

We found out that the coaches up at Lake Worth High and Palm Beach High were paid for spring training. How did the coach down at Carver and [?] at Atlantic High School—? Well anyway, we were going in to see the superintendent. And this will make you laugh, it’s funny. Any conversation with the superintendent was very—Howell Watkins was an interesting person. One session we had with him about the salary schedule, we got fired three times in the course of sitting down there talking. [inaudible] We knew he'd reinstate us.

One other thing I’d like to add while we’re talking about it; that is, why I am so pleased with what they've done with Poinciana here. The school policy at the time was to name the school either geographically or some flower. But Franklin Roosevelt had been president for so long, they decided to name [Industrial High School] after Franklin Roosevelt, Roosevelt [ Junior-Senior] High School, the 22nd of May [1950]. We used that as a means, that once you broke the chain—. Therefore, Everglades Vocational High School [was renamed Lake Shore High] in the Glades, and today the Board was petitioned to name the school [at a new location] after [George Washington] Carver, once they opened the door.

When we got to the question of integration, one of the stratagems used in the counties—and I think you’ll have observed that it wasn’t used in Palm Beach County because of the understanding we had. Palm Beach County was an easier place to deal with, if you went and got a chance to talk to the powers that be, you could get things done differently. Once they opened the school names up, then they got in Carver, and

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during this integration plan they decided one of the requirements was to do away with the name. If we're gonna name a school, if you decide you’re going to use names [vs numbers]—you had Roosevelt, you’re gonna have Howell Watkins—then you got to have some Black school names. My persuasion is, if you get to a person who’s in power—. My mother told us, never quarrel with the person who doesn't have the capacity or desire to make a change. You don’t do that. [But] Blacks had to do it all the time. You get in your car and go from Delray Beach to Live Oak, my hometown, you had to decide to get your gas. Will they let you use the facilities? Wait until he starts to pump the gas, say 10 cents of a dollar's worth, then you ask to use the bathroom. You start with a half a tank, we had to do it, and you always find someone.

You had to have enough to get to the next place. I never forget taking my daughter to Live Oak, and we stopped in a place up in Gainesville. Got gas, asked the man for the bathroom, and he said, we don't have bathrooms for coloreds. I said, don’t put the gas in the car. Cheryl, my daughter, [inaudible] wanted to go to the bathroom, and I had to tell her the man wouldn't let me, so I can't buy gas from him, no bathrooms for coloreds. I said, don't get angry with him, cause he’s working. We'll go across the street—this was a Standard Oil, and there was a Gulf station, and it just so happened that the man at the Gulf station sold us the gas and we could use their facilities. And that was a lesson that I was able to teach her: you don’t hold it against everybody. That was my way about integration. You don’t just carte blanche put it against everybody. And that’s why I made a commitment to integrate or desegregate, whatever you want to call it.

Interviewer: Where were you when that happened?

Pompey: I was in Delray. The school had set up—I call it a monstrosity. I was assistant principal at— it wasn’t Atlantic—Seacrest High School. I was principal at Carver Junior High. In order to get the White students to go to Carver, see, we had better facilities. One thing Marshall had told us the year before is that if they made it expensive—. In order to

"My persuasion is, if you get to a person who’s in power—. My mother told us, never quarrel with the person who doesn't have the capacity or desire to make a change."

C. Spencer Pompey.

Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

keep Blacks in that place, they built better facilities, they built better schools in the Black community.

Actually, we had a better size laboratory at Carver than they had at Seacrest. While we were planning, they weren't gonna send kids over to Carver cause it was a Black school, but we had an understanding in Delray that was different. In other words, we weren't gonna have two schools. If you close Carver School and make us all go to Seacrest, then you have to close the junior high school and they have to come over to Carver. Delray didn't do a good job, with the exception of the Glades. The local Whites in Delray sent their kids to private schools. We didn't let that bother us too much. We just had the understanding.

I sometimes teased them. But we learned over the years that you don't get angry with them. There were some Whites that sent their children to school, they didn't go to the private school, and one time they got a little angry with this lady [ Joan Weir?], and I supported them. I said at the time, when none of these other people would send their kids to Carver, [ Joan Weir?] had a girl [Louise?] at that school.

C. Spencer Pompey, Carver Middle School Principal. April 24, 1977.

Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

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Interviewer: Did supplies and books change with integration? What did you have before, and what did integration bring?

Pompey: Well first of all, Florida has a very poor system. It is based on [inaudible] and that's bad, so that if you applied everything equal to the— People tended to give or support those schools better than they did otherwise. We have almost the same problem, although it’s not racial. Americans, we want to kill something, we kill it all, White or Black. Look what they've done to the coastal schools. That is why I am so elated they spent the money they did here, that’s not like Palm Beach. They spent the money all out west. And the way that they’ve treated the coastal schools—Atlantic, Lake Worth, Palm Beach High—all out west. And that’s one of the things in my first conversation with our new superintendent, I called their attention to that. What are you gonna do about the coastal schools? When I see this plan here, this is contrary.

Interviewer: All the way from Dade County on up?

Pompey: Oh yeah. It isn't a question of racist sides.

I call it a shortsighted syndrome, that they're gonna put them out west. We've got to find another name to supporting the schools. Florida had never done fair by education, even with the lottery. We made a lot of money with the lottery, but instead of the legislature labeling it as surplus, it goes in one pot and the school doesn't get much out of it. Florida has got to come to grips with—you may not agree with this. Actually, Florida spends less of a percentage, out of any state in the south—even Mississippi, that pays a smaller proportion of its resources—on education. Maybe we got that from Henry Flagler, when he came down here.

And then, it's the fastest growing state. We used to say years ago that the people coming down were beyond childbearing age.

That isn't true now.

used to tell me all the time, you got money, because Florida has a state educational system and because everybody has gone to school before; therefore, they feel free to tell teachers or the schools how they should be run. Everybody feels he can tell the teachers how to run it. They won't tell the doctors, but since they've all gone to school, they go there and tell the teachers how to run the school. The other thing Florida has done, Florida passed a law. I get a charge even at my age to tell about it now. Florida has on its statues a law that anybody can teach in Florida if it’s an emergency [such as during a strike]. I think it's permanently, in order to keep the schools open. We had a real powerful group in the State of Florida. We had a meeting one time, and this fellow that was the chair said, I could make a telephone call and change the thinking of all the papers in the state of Florida. I didn't believe him. I just didn’t think anyone could be that powerful. He did it.

They made this call. And during that walkout, with the exception of the Gainesville Sun and the St. Petersburg Times, the only two papers in the state of Florida that you get a favorable hearing [from].

Florida has another thing.

I was a part of the teachers’ group that had a walkout.

We decided to get the attention of the legislature.

I never forget going in the office to talk to a young fellow from Pensacola, senator by the name of Reubin Askew. We went in and talked with Askew, and at that particular time Interviewer: When was this?

Mr. and Mrs. C. Spencer Pompey. in the senate there was a young fellow, a pretty good Courtesy Spady Cultural Heritage Museum.

Pompey: 1964 [1968?]. If you senator, Lawton Chiles. see anything today, this Big Talking with those fellows—Lawton did better than Sugar thing, whatever it is—whenever they speak, most, he founded the MFP, Minimum Foundation somebody listens. We put all our money in general [Program], but we never fronted it. All of our money treasury, there's nothing specific to education, so you is in the general treasury, and we start to spend it. gotta cut something. You can't cut the roads, cause The Road Department, they get it. Have you ever the Road Department got there. Look at the money been to West Florida, see how good the roads are we're spending now to keep the sound or whatever, up there? Those boys are sharp politicians up there, however much it costs to do that. When it comes to they get it. In Palm Beach County, we wanted one of education—. the big six, I guess, out of every dollar. My mother

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Interviewer: Mr. Pompey, we're planning on restoring the 1913 schoolhouse [originally Boynton Beach School] for a children's history museum. What do you think should be included in that museum that would be important for children growing up today? [Note: It became the Schoolhouse Children's Museum & Learning Center in Boynton Beach] Pompey: I think that restoring that building could make a statement, because it's going to be different than the way it was in 1913. That was the time when [Sheat's] law was in effect. But because we're going to have a different group, I think it'd be the finest thing in the world, because we live in a great country and the founding fathers envisioned a day when— they didn't do everything perfect, but they made the [thing?] broad enough to cover everything. I think you should restore that school like it was in 1913.

But 1913 to 1997 would be Black kids going to that school who could not, in 1913, think about it. The people would be entirely different. I think it would be the finest thing in the world.

Interviewer: What is important for this area’s Black children to know about their local history?

Pompey: I think two things. First of all, they ought to know something about their roots. It's easy to get the negative things. It’s easy to do that. I think that they've had some very outstanding people. Look, Boynton was one of the first communities that had Blacks on the city commission. Boynton still, today, has better representation in this government than has Delray. Now we’re an All-American City, but if you think about the fact that not many Blacks did that, they didn't do it simply because they were Black, they produced. That's the thing that Black kids would—if l could teach them one thing, it is to have them dream, not to accept the present as permanent. See, maybe I’m getting truly emotional if l make this comment, I really am sincere about it.

If you accept your present condition as permanent, you can't do anything about it, you're doomed. The only thing that'll keep you moving is knowing that tomorrow can be better. I would say to the young kids that however bad things are today, that they can

32 | TUSTENEGEE

be better. You got to dream. Drugs and all of those things, bad as they are, and they are bad, we cannot let bad get permanent.

The other thing is that you can't have it all at once.

One other thing I did with my grandchildren, I say it all the time, you don't want to accomplish things immediately, you have to work for it. When I make this comment, you'll say I am two-faced. I believe there's a role for the government in everything. We cannot become a slave to them. I am one of the biggest critics of our doing away with affirmative action. It does not mean that because of my race, that I want you to give me something extra. Just don't hold me back because of my race. My mother used to put it to me like this, she used to tell us all the time, when you get a job, make sure the reason why you are fired or advanced, make sure it is because of your race. I said, Mama, what do you mean? She said, well, don’t be late, be ready to do, put your time in. When he fires you, then he did because of your color. That’s a serious responsibility. We got to get that over to them. Have I done everything? Did I go on time? Mama had us going to work on time, doing whatever I was supposed to. She insisted that we tell the people, how much you going to pay? I’ll never forget, a man came selling oranges. I didn’t ask him how much he’s going to pay. I worked with him selling oranges a whole day. He gave me 35 cents. I was mad! Mama said, did you make a contract with him?

Interviewer: Can I ask you a series of questions?

When were you born?

Pompey: I was born July 31, 1915.

Interviewer: Where?

Pompey: Baker County—Macclenny, Florida.

Interviewer: Your father's name?

Pompey: Samuel Frank Pompey IV. He was the fourth one to be named Samuel Frank.

"That's the thing that Black kids would—if l could teach them one thing, it is to have them dream, not to accept the present as permanent. See, maybe I’m getting truly emotional if l make this comment, I really am sincere about it. If you accept your present condition as permanent, you can't do anything about it, you're doomed. The only thing that'll keep you moving is knowing that tomorrow can be better. I would say to the young kids that however bad things are today, that they can be better. You got to dream. Drugs and all of those things, bad as they are, and they are bad, we cannot let bad get permanent."

Spencer Pompey, age 71, addresses a class at S.D. Spady Elementary School in Delray on February 21, 1987. Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

Interviewer: Your mother's name?

Pompey: Mary Louise Wright Pompey.

Interviewer: Where was your father born?

Pompey: My father was born in Cuthbert, Georgia.

Interviewer: Do you remember when he was born?

Pompey: Yes, my father was born 1872.

Interviewer: And your mother?

Pompey: She was born 1881. September the 11th.

She was born in [Falma?]. That’s in Suwannee Town, near the Suwannee River.

Interviewer: Your mother was a teacher?

Pompey: Yes, she was a teacher. My father was a nurseryman and a preacher.

Interviewer: I know you told me where you went to school. Your wife's name?

Pompey: Hattie Ruth [Keys].

Interviewer: I know you have a daughter.

Pompey: Her name is Cheryl Howard.

Interviewer: Do you have any other children?

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Pompey: No. One child with two grandchildren [Ashley and Zaneta].

came down to that money, they were good. That’s why we have to love this country.

Interviewer: I heard we have to do this with your wife. She has another whole history about her.

Interviewer: We appreciate what you have done.

Interviewer: If you have pictures of Boynton, we can scan them and use them for our dedication.

Pompey: I do have pictures of the Play Day exercises that they had in those times. [ Julius Rosenwald] was Jewish. He was from Chicago and worked for a long time with Sears Roebuck. In his will, he established a fund that would supply buildings for Blacks, called Rosenwald Fund. This school, Poinciana [c.1925], was one of the schools that he funded, he and another farmer, the Jeanes Fund [of Anna T. Jeanes, which trained Supervisors]. That's what makes our country so great. There were a lot of people who took their means and provided education, opportunities—Jeanes Fund, Rosenwald Fund—and [Andrew] Carnegie built the libraries. [ Johnson] C. Smith has a Carnegie library. Those men [like Rockefeller, Carnegie, they may be cutthroat dealers but [it] was the type of support they provided that made a difference. I don’t know how many schools he funded in the state.

Interviewer: Eight.

[Unidentified]: Did he actually build the schools, finance the building of the schools?

Pompey: Yeah, the Rosenwald Schools. As I said before, schools were not funded too well. Under the laws of the state of Florida you could build a school but you had to get someone to house it.

This is where the Rosenwald Fund came in. Jeanes, Rosenwald, Carnegie were great contributors. Well, Carnegie wasn’t Jewish, but Rosenwald and Jeanes and Rockefeller were. [Note: Anna T. Jeanes was a Quaker; John D. Rockefeller was a Baptist.] The buildings that they gave were dormitories at my school, [ Johnson] C. Smith. Those people were the worst in competition with each other, but when it

34 | TUSTENEGEE

Elizabeth Jenkins: Mr. Pompey, when you were here, how far did the grades go?

Pompey: Eighth grade.

[Unidentified}: Did you have a kindergarten at the time?

Pompey: Oh no. One of the big problems [was], you could begin school at [age] five or five and a half.

Next birthday. The “separate but equal” doctrine enabled Black schools to do some things that were not exactly kosher at that time. For instance, Carver had no high school in Pompano or Deerfield for Blacks. Well, we picked up students from Boca Raton and then from Deerfield. I’ll never forget the superintendent talking: that was against the law. He said, "If you asked me whether you can do it, I'd have to tell you no, but if you just go and get by with it, fine." That’s something we just learned. We picked them up. [Superintendent] was an elected office.

We picked up kids from Lake Worth all the way to Deerfield. We went to eighth grade.

Elizabeth Jenkins: I remember we had two graduations a year, for sixth and eighth grade, up until sometime in the ’60s. They cut it out to come into this integration thing.

Pompey: That was a big thing. It was easy to sell education those days. Parents looked forward to the graduation. At this particular school, they had a graduation day much better than they have now.

It’s almost a farce now, eighth grade and then ninth grade. Whatever grade a particular school had, that's the commencement for it. You had speakers.

You had to be concerned about getting someone to deliver the commencement for your eighth grade.

This schoolhouse in Boynton Beach, constructed according to Rosenwald specifications, suffered less damage during the 1928 hurricane than any schoolhouse in Palm Beach County. It cost only $86.00 to completely repair the school.

Courtesy Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida.

Note: Oral history cannot be depended on for complete accuracy, based as it is on complex human memory and communication of that memory, which varies due to factors such as genetics, social culture, gender, and education. Nonetheless, oral history is a valuable tool in historical study. The HSPBC has noted any known inaccuracies in footnotes.

The Boynton Beach City Library has led several oral history initiatives over the years, with the help of

staff and volunteers. Thanks and credit go to many individuals for preparation, interviewing, transcribing, digitizing, and creating access, and to several organizations for their generous funding, including the Boynton Beach Historical Society.

Copyright of the original transcript belongs to Boynton Beach City Library, which has given permission of reproduction to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. The HSPBC has edited the transcript for space and clarity for publication. The original audio and transcript are available at https://archive.org/details/ cspencerpompey1996oralhistory

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36 | TUSTENEGEE

Historical Society of Palm Beach County 2019-2020 Officers Board Chair Thomas M. Kirchhoff First Vice Chair Ross W. W. Meltzer Second Vice Chair Mark Stevens Secretary Richard S. Johnson Jr. Treasurer Thomas Burns, CPA Member at Large Joseph Chase Past Chair J. Grier Pressly III Member Emeritus Robert W. Ganger

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38 | TUSTENEGEE

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Judge James R. Knott Award Established in 1989, this award honors the late Honorable Judge James R. Knott, who served as president of the HSPBC from 1957 to 1969. It recognizes the achievements of an individual or organization that has contributed to the preservation, promotion, or enrichment of Palm Beach County history.

Delray Beach native and Spady Cultural Heritage Museum director Charlene Farrington has preserved, promoted, interpreted, and enriched Palm Beach County’s history for current and future generations. As the museum’s programming director for more than two decades and its executive director since 2012, Charlene has connected generations of children, teens, and adults with the community’s African-American, Caribbean-American, and Haitian-American heritage.

Through internships, mentorships, apprenticeships, and partnerships, Charlene has helped the Spady Museum make great progress. She has preserved objects and voices from our rich history in the museum’s archives. Using a Youth Cultural Empowerment Program, she has led the museum in connecting the past with the future by inspiring, teaching, and strengthening the next generation. Charlene has given children, teens, and young adults a sense of place, cooperation, confidence, and conviction through historic and cultural stewardship. Her Ride and Remember Trolley tours, Living Heritage Month events, Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations, community forums and lectures, educational historic exhibits, and tireless community outreach has connected residents and visitors of all cultures with Palm Beach County’s rich heritage.

40 | TUSTENEGEE

We accept nominations year-round at info@hspbc.org.

Call 561-832-4164 for more information.

Thank you.

Fannie James Award Established in 2003, this annual award recognizes the achievements of individuals or organizations that have significantly contributed to preserving and sharing the history of Palm Beach County’s pioneering days. The award is named for the late Fannie James, an African American who served as the first postmistress of the Jewell Post Office (now Lake Worth Beach), which was open from 1889 until 1903.

Gina Sauber (1964-2019), from Wisconsin, lived most of her adult life in Palm Beach County. Known throughout South Florida as the “Pioneer Woman,” Gina used her portrayal of an early Florida settler to teach appreciation for nature and the privileges of modern life. At Yesteryear Village’s Corbett House, she hosted thousands of people per year in the old hunting shack, during the South Florida Fair and on the days it operated as a living museum. Vicki Chouris, executive director of the Fair, said, “The number of children’s hearts and minds Gina touched is unmeasurable. She was a true pioneer and her footprint will always be with us.”

Gina founded “A Time Remembered,” a mobile educational program that traveled in a Shasta camper to schools and festivals, filled with authentic historic relics. She used her talent for arts and crafts to make gifts from animal feathers and alligator scutes (the bony plates on the back of an alligator). Gina is remembered for her extraordinary kindness, beautiful smile, and ability to find joy in all of life’s situations.

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CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP

HONORING

Jim

Ponce

The HSPBC has established The Historical Society of Palm Beach County James Ponce Endowment Fund for Exhibition Development at the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, in honor of the late James Augustine Ponce, Palm Beach's "two-legged, historical landmark."

Through the Community Foundation’s Forever Nonprofit Endowment Challenge, HSPBC was selected to receive a $25,000 matching grant for setting up the permanent endowment. The growth from this investment will support the annual special exhibitions in the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum.

Please contact us to learn how your investment can provide an opportunity to link our shared past to future generations at 561.832.4164 ext. 100 or info@hspbc.org.

Corporate Membership with the HSPBC offers benefits for your employees and clients to fully experience and enjoy the Johnson History Museum and other Society programs year-round.

Benefits to all Corporate Members:

Admission to all lectures Professionally supported access to the archives and research library; amount varies by level Invitations by mail to all special events 20% discount for all employees in our Museum Store Opportunity to hold an event at the 1916 Historic Court House Listing in the Tustenegee journal; access by mail and electronically 10% discount on all use fees in the Research Department

Trailblazer $5,000

Opportunity to hold a corporate event at the Museum with no administrative honorarium Exclusive, curator-led private tour of the Museum’s exhibitions and collections for up to 12 guests Complimentary admission to VIP events for six guests Up to two hours consultation with curator on how to set up archives.

(4) 16” x 20” prints of a historical photograph(s) from the HSPBC Archives. Restrictions apply.

Linked logo on the Historical Society’s website www.hspbc.org

Frontier $2,500

Opportunity to host a corporate event at the Museum with 50% discount on administrative honorarium Private docent-led tour of the Museum’s exhibitions for up to 30 guests Complimentary admission to VIP events for four guests Up to two hours consultation with curator on how to set up archives.

(3) 16” x 20” prints of a historical photograph(s) from the HSPBC Archives. Restrictions apply.

Linked logo on the Historical Society website www.hspbc.org

Providencia $1,000

Complimentary admission to VIP events for two guests (2) 16” x 20” prints of a historical photograph(s) from the HSPBC Archives. Restrictions apply.

Linked logo on the Historical Society website www.hspbc.org

Homestead $500

(1) 16” x 20” print of a historical photograph from the HSPBC Archives. Restrictions apply.

Two professionally supported research in the HSPBC Archives /Library, by appointment Company name and logo at www.hspbc.org

Everglades $250

1 hour professionally supported research in the HSPBC Archives /Library by appointment Company name and logo at www.hspbc.org

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offers special thanks to our Corporate Members & Partners

Corporate Members Corporate Frontier ($2,500) Christian Angle Real Estate Nievera Williams Design, Inc. Sciame Homes LLC Wall Private Wealth Window & Door Design Center

Corporate Providencia ($1,000) Dailey Janssen Architects Flagler Realty & Development FPL Hedrick Brothers Construction Kirchhoff & Associates Architects Leeds Custom Design, Ltd. The Nicoletti Financial Group of Stifel

Corporate Homestead ($500) Palm Beach Yacht Club The Epic West Palm Beach

Corporate Everglades ($250) NextHome Real Estate Executives

Sponsors and other Partners Blackjade Consulting LLC Blue Ocean Capital Botanica Brown Distributing Burkhardt Land Trust Capehart Photography CBIZ / Dennis Goldstein Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches City of West Palm Beach Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin Counties Corporate Property Services Discover the Palm Beaches Eau Resort and Spa Edward Jones Investment | James Smeenge Fernando Wong Outdoor Design Flagler Realty & Development Florida Sugar Cane League Garden of Life Garrison Brothers Distillery General Society of Colonial Wars Gunster Haifa Limestone

Hedrick Brothers Construction Island Company Rum John C. Cassidy Air Conditioning Keller Williams | Rachel Tessoff Kirchhoff & Associates Architects Lake Worth Drainage District Leeds Custom Design, Ltd. Lesser, Lesser, Landy & Smith Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County McMow Art Glass Murray & Guari Trial Attorneys Nievera Williams Design Okeechobee Steak House Palm Beach County Bar Association Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners Palm Beach Kennel Club Palm Beach Media Group Pioneer Linens PNC Bank Prime Golf Cars Publix REG Architects Related Company/CityPlace Sciame Homes Sean Rush Atelier Searcy Denney Sloan's Ice Cream Smart Source LLC Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Florida Southern Glazers State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs Sunshine Towers Sysco Table 26 The Law Offices of Abigail Beebe, P.A. The Palm Event The Royal (Poinciana Plaza) The Skier Law Firm, P.A. Therma Seal Insulation Systems Tito's Homemade Vodka TMK Farms U.S. Sugar Corporation Very Important Paws Wayne Boynton Wells Fargo Bank West Palm Beach Antique Row Art & Design District West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority Whitley's Auctioneers Whole Foods Window Gang of Palm Beach

Foundation Partners Addison Hines Charitable Trust Cathleen McFarlane Foundation David Minkin Foundation Frances G. Scaife Foundation J.M. Rubin Foundation James M. Cox Foundation Jane Beasley Foundation Leslie & Ronald Y. Schram Philanthropic Fund Marshall E. Rinker, Sr. Foundation Palm Beach Country Club Foundation Palm Beach County Bar Association, Inc. Palm Beach County Bar Association, Inc. North County Sec. Pat Moran Family Foundation Patricia Lambrecht Foundation Reynolds Family Foundation Richard S. Johnson Family Foundation Scaife Family Foundation Sharkey Family Foundation Inc. Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Florida The Loreen Beiswenger Farish Charitable Foundation The Mary Alice Fortin Foundation Timothy D. & Karen V. Burke Charitable Fund

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From the Photographic Collection

by Rose Guerrero This October we look at past celebrations of cultural events here in Palm Beach County.

The German-American Club in Lake Worth has held Oktoberfest for over forty-six years.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, such events have been postponed until 2021. These images from the HSPBC Palm Beach Post Collection help us to relive such jovial experiences. We hope we will soon be able to enjoy one another's company, maybe with a pint or two.

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A polka band entertains residents of a care facility in celebration of Oktoberfest.

Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

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Top: Guests at Oktoberfest observe the festivities.

Bottom: Chuck Zator and Marge Schneider (center) do the chicken dance to the music of Dick Dreher and the Rhineland Band, one of many entertainers at the Octoberfest celebration in suburban Lake Worth.

Courtesy Palm Beach Post Collection, HSPBC.

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Clair Ruthford enjoys her time in Palm Beach sitting on the back of Bulu, a 14-foot-long alligator believed to be 700 years old.

Courtesy Historical Society of Palm Beach County

Historical Society of Palm Beach County 300 North Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach, FL 33401 P.O. Box 4364, West Palm Beach, FL 33402 Phone: (561) 832-4164 | Fax: (561) 832-7965 www.hspbc.org | www.pbchistoryonline.org