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Neighborhood Report

Proper honor for pioneer debated

Should Ellen Green's name grace a park, a street, an island or a library?

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published November 3, 2006

Nobody disagrees that civil rights activist Ellen Green deserves some sort of memorial in Port Tampa, where she was born, lived and, on Sept. 24, died at the age of 91.

Green became the local president of the NAACP in 1959 and stayed at the helm into the 1960s, a time when racial integration was a battle in the South and few women held leadership positions. Among many who admire her, Mayor Pam Iorio paid her tribute in an article she wrote for a history journal.

But since Green died, tensions have risen among her admirers over the question of how to memorialize her.

Less than a week after she died, the Port Tampa Civic Association voted to name a park after her. It was a grassy stretch of vacant land on Commerce Street, at the western edge of the neighborhood.

Not good enough, said Green's daughter Irma Truss. Trucks coming in from the nearby industrial area drive over that grass all the time, Truss said. And a bar overlooks it.

"I think that's a slap in the face to my mom," Truss said.

Resident Tonya "Cookie" Wideman was outraged the day she saw the location of the park. She started a campaign to get the Port Tampa City Library named after Green instead.

Wideman went door-to-door in the neighborhood, and collected more than 200 signatures. She presented them, along with pages documenting Green's accomplishments, to the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library Board last week.

On Nov. 30, a board committee will discuss it.

Meanwhile, the civic association won't back the library idea. President Jill Buford said members discussed it and decided against it. Instead, they're offering Green's family four alternatives: a scholarship fund, a historical designation for her house, renaming Picnic Island or renaming a street after her.

Green's daughter wants the library.

"My mom was a self-educated person. Most of the things she accomplished were through self-education," Truss said. "The library to me would be very appropriate because you can go to the library to teach yourself anything."

Buford, who sat with Green just before she died, feels the association had the right idea from the beginning.

"My opinion is the park would be better," Buford said. "But that was nixed."

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 2, 2006, 12:37:31]