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Letter to the editor

1983: Museum offers look at black history

By Theresa Blackwell, Times Staff Writer
Published February 17, 2008

CLEARWATER - When you walk through the door of Dorothy Thompson's black history museum at 1501 N Madison Ave., you enter a little-known world.

To the left of the doorway is an article about artist Selma Burke, who designed the rendering of Franklin D. Roosevelt that appears on the dime.

"Everybody comes in contact with a dime," says Mrs. Thompson, who taught at the all-black Pinellas High School now Clearwater Comprehensive Middle School. "Black history is every day. I hate the idea of everybody concentrating on February."

In order to accomplish her dream of having a place in the black community where people could come to learn about black history, Mrs. Thompson gave up the rent on a next-door apartment and converted it into a museum two years ago. She has poured about $50,000 into the venture, including a $12,000 room addition, she says. However, she "couldn't put a price" on the artifacts inside or the time she has invested in the project.

The 65-year-old retiree started her collection of books, records, pioneer artifacts, kitchen utensils and cookbooks about 50 years ago when a "Facts about the Negro" column in the Pittsburgh Courier caught her attention. She forages in thrift and second-hand bookstores for historical finds and carves out time each day to catalog and arrange the volumes of information.

Nestled in a glass showcase and nearby bookshelves are artifacts from about 30 of the 75 families she identifies as black pioneers - people who have lived in the area for 50 or more years. The artifacts include:

-A steel bar general store owner C.C. Rutledge Sr. used to sharpen his knife before cutting wafer-thin slices of cheese. Mrs. Thompson made a large circle with her hands and explained that Rutledge placed the cheese between two big "moon cookies" and sold the treat for a nickel in the 1930s.

-A tribute to Jake Bryant, one of the first black taxi drivers, and Vashti Hubbard, the community's first black nurse.

-The medical bag of midwife Della Jackson, who delivered black children in Clearwater until the early 1940s.

-Shears and a piece of cloth from Cherry Harris, a widely known seamstress.

-Photos of the Hollywood Grill on Greenwood Avenue, a popular eatery, and the spoon that grill owner Fannie Wall used to make her famous potato pies.

-The Sunday School book of Carrie Palmer, affectionately known as "Miss Prissy." Mrs. Thompson says the woman's trademarks were her Sunday School book and lavender linen dress. According to the museum curator, Miss Prissy's longtime wish was to live to be 100. She died three hours past her 100th birthday.

"This is old, black Clearwater," Mrs. Thompson says emphatically.

In the future, she would like to obtain relics from other community figures such as shoemakers, ice men and woodsmen, who were integral parts of society during the early 1900s.

Feb. 21, 1945

Dunedin fathers weigh work or fight law

DUNEDIN - Mayor W.H. Titus suggested that the city commission consider a work or fight ordinance similar to the one passed in Clearwater on Monday night.

City commissioners said they would have to give the matter study and requested City Attorney K.W. Kerr get a copy of the Clearwater ordinance.

Some objections were raised by spectators. One of them inquired, "Our soldiers are fighting for democracy, and is this type of law representative of it?"

Headlines through the years

A look back at the events, people and places that made North Pinellas the unique place that it is. The information is compiled from past editions of the St. Petersburg Times.

[Last modified February 16, 2008, 21:07:24]