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Politics

State's 1st black agency director dies

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 16, 2006

MIAMI - Athalie Range, the first black person in Florida to serve as the head of a state government agency, died Tuesday night at her Miami home, her family said. She was 91.

Mrs. Range had been ill for several months, said her grandson, Patrick Range II.

In a historic appointment, Gov. Reubin Askew named her director of the Florida Department of Community Affairs in 1971.

Mrs. Range also was the first black city commissioner of Miami. Elected in 1965, she served several terms.

She also chaired the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, founded in 1999 to preserve the only Miami public recreation area that was open to black people during segregation.

Mrs. Range's grandson called the beach project "her last hurrah ... to restore the beach so it could be preserved and the story told to generations to come of black Americans."

Her career in public service began with the PTA at her youngest son's school, which was segregated, her grandson said.

"Her efforts were to ensure the most basic needs for her son and the other students at the school - like cool drinking water - and ensuring that the same opportunities and resources that were available to white students were available for black students as well," Patrick Range said.

Mrs. Range and her husband, Oscar, founded Range Funeral Home in 1953. She enrolled in mortuary school to take over the Miami business when her husband died in 1965, eventually passing it to her son, Patrick Range's father.

Her survivors include two sons and a daughter. A third son preceded her in death.

[Last modified November 16, 2006, 00:06:11]