Place an Ad Calendars Classified Forums Sports Weather

sptimes.com Text-only News sections Arts & Entertainment AP The Wire Business Citrus County Columnists Floridian Hernando County Hillsborough Letters Movies Neighborhood Times News Update North Pinellas North of Tampa Obituaries Opinion Pasco County South Pinellas Sports State Tampa Bay TV Times World & Nation  Find your local news section Weekly sections Brandon Times City Times Homes Outdoors Perspective Personal Tech Taste Travel Weekend Xpress Special Sections Arena football Buccaneers College football Devil Rays Lightning Police reports Schools Seniority Subscriber Services Subscribe Renew Help Advertise Place an ad In print Online Market Info Join Us Internships Scholarships Times Jobs Contact us

Lost but not forgotten

The athletic history of pre-integration black schools is missing from state record books

[Times photo: Fraser Hale] The only records Henry Washington, left, and Jimmy Smith have of their careers at Tampa's Middleton High are in scrapbooks.

By KEITH NIEBUHR

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 24, 2001

The scrapbook that Jimmy Smith keeps tucked away in a backyard storage shed holds newspaper clippings and tournament programs that chronicle his basketball career at Tampa's Middleton High School in the 1960s. Among the items are keepsakes from Middleton's 1964 state championship season.

Every once in a while, he opens the scrapbook and relives his youth.

"Talk about a great feeling," Smith said.

Smith, a senior in 1964, started at forward for the Tigers, who in a memorable span of 24 hours that spring beat Pompano Beach Ely, Fort Lauderdale Dillard and then Hollywood Attucks in the Class 2A final, 94-93, to claim their eighth Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association state title.

"The game (against Attucks) was just a great game," said the 54-year-old Smith, an assistant principal at Chamberlain. "It could have gone either way. They missed a half-court shot at the buzzer. After that shot, we all wound up in the middle of the floor (celebrating)."

Thirty-seven years later, Smith's scrapbook is one of the few reminders of Middleton's accomplishment.

The Florida High School Activities Association lists the 1964 large-school champion as Pensacola High. There is no mention of Middleton or any other FIAA championship team in any sport or any year in the FHSAA record book. The reason? In the days of segregation, they were schools for black students.

"Obviously, if you're going to have records, if they're going to be accurate, they all need to be there," Smith said.

State Sen. Les Miller of Tampa, a 1969 Middleton graduate, and Rep. Arthenia Joyner, also of Tampa, talked one day this year about the accomplishments of the pre-integration black schools when it occurred to them that few records were available.

"We wanted to try to do something to recognize what the black schools had done before integration," Miller said. "We had some outstanding athletes and some of the rivalries were fantastic. But one of the things we ran into was that we didn't find a lot of records out there. We wanted to put something in place to recognize the accomplishments of these schools."

With that in mind, Miller and Joyner filed identical bills in the Senate and House this spring that would require the FHSAA to "include certain minority students' past athletic accomplishments in its official records."

"We kind of said, "Hey, we need to try to find this information,' " Miller said.

Bob Hughes, FHSAA commissioner since 1998, let Miller know that many records were missing.

"We have partial records, but we don't have all the records," Hughes said. "I told them we would be happy to include any official records that are presented to us that are in existence."

Satisfied by the FHSAA's willingness to add the records, Miller and Joyner decided not to pursue their respective bills. But for the FHSAA to include the records, it would still have to find them.

Attempts have been made over the years. The FIAA, the governing body for the state's pre-integration black schools, disbanded in 1968 after its member schools joined the FHSAA. Wilts Alexander, executive secretary of the FIAA from 1949-68, was hired by the FHSAA and took what FIAA records he had, but they were incomplete and never added into the FHSAA's official record books.

Cecelia Jackson, FHSAA director af athletics and a 26-year association employee, tried on more than one occasion to compile FIAA records but came up empty each time. Other FHSAA inquiries into the matter also failed.

"I've always said if we ever find (records) or ever compile it, we would be able to do something from it," Jackson said. "We've always asked people, "Do you have anything, a newspaper, yearbook or anything that would help us compile them?' But through the years nobody has ever handed us anything that we could pull anything from."

Many of the records disappeared when black schools closed. Some of Middleton's were destroyed by a fire in the late 1960s.

Jackson realizes the importance of the records. She attended Fessenden Academy, a small black school in the Marion County town of Martin.

"For those schools who had outstanding programs and outstanding coaches through the years, getting recognition for that work would, for them, be an honor," Jackson said. "Don't think we ignored this. Believe me, we've made a number of phone calls through the years. Various efforts were made."

Perhaps the most comprehensive source of records from black schools is a book published in 1982 called The History of the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association 1932-68.

Alexander and co-authors Leedell W. Neyland and Matthew Estaras spent three years working on the book, which includes listings of a number of state championship teams in baseball, basketball and track and field.

It was not an easy endeavor for the authors, who noted in the preface "that due to lack of adequate records and documents, it is impossible to present a thoroughly comprehensive and definitive history of the association. However, having first-hand knowledge that many records of the FIAA were irretrievably destroyed, that others were being held by officers for various reasons, and that records from now abolished black schools were not readily accessible, the writers decided to use the materials and resources at hand."

"I was shocked really that we had such little information on the organization," said Neyland, 79, a longtime dean of arts and sciences at Florida A&M and author of seven books. "People knew so little about it. They did not have records of state championships, and in many cases the individual schools did not have records."

By using official letters, programs, newspaper clippings and FIAA minutes maintained by Alexander and Estaras, both prominent members of the association, the trio compiled records that Neyland is "convinced are accurate."

"As a historian, I hated to write it like this, with so many gaps," Neyland said. "But I think you've got to be realistic. You have to admit from the beginning, which is what I did, that there will incredible gaps you cannot fill."

Amazingly, nearly 20 years after the book's publication, the FHSAA said last week that it had no copy. Jackson said the association had never been able to locate it despite making more than a few attempts. Neyland, the only one of the book's authors still living, said he sent the FHSAA a copy at the time of its publication.

He promised this week to put another one in the mail as soon as possible.

"I think it's a good starting point," Neyland said. "I know it leaves much to be desired but they've got to do the best they can. It would mean something to the FHSAA (to include FIAA records). They need that kind of material. They would feel better if they had it."

The "gaps" that Neyland described could be a source of contention.

Ultimately, the FHSAA might have to decide to leave everybody out or take whatever it gets its hands on. Hughes has stated more than once that he wants all records to be "complete and accurate."

"We'll have to look at them," Hughes said. "If we want to show a period of time, say from the 1930s or '40s until 1968, in fairness of all the schools, we would need records of state champions every year to be able to publish them, so we don't leave other people out. But we're willing to work with what we get. I think it's something worth making an effort. These accomplishments should not be overlooked."

Other southern states have faced the same dilemma.

High school associations in Alabama and Georgia, like Florida, do not include pre-integration records from black schools. The Alabama High School Athletic Association has no records from those schools. The Georgia High School Association was given several documents containing records last year but has not decided what to do with them.

The Mississippi High School Activities Association, however, does list the championship results of black schools. In 1986, 15 years after a court order forced the association to merge with the Magnolia State High School Activities Association, which governed the state's black schools, its board members agreed to include the achievements of the black schools.

Henry "Shake" Washington, a four-sport standout at Middleton in the 1960s, figures partial records are better than none.

Like Smith, the 52-year old Chamberlain principal has a scrapbook at home filled with clippings. Washington is hopeful others with scrapbooks from across the state will come forward with information that will lead to the FHSAA's inclusion of FIAA records.

"If we can get this information for Middleton, it would probably work all over Florida," Washington said.

"Somebody needs to initiate it. We probably wouldn't be able to get 100 percent (of the records), but what would happen is that you would have updates, and as (the FHSAA) would publish it, some people would see it and say, "This is missing."'

Washington understands the FHSAA's position and the difficulty the association will have in compiling this information. But he knows what it would mean for those associated with the FIAA to finally see the names of the black schools next to the white schools in the record books.

"Everybody needs to know the history of the black schools," Washington said.

"I think that's important to not only the black Americans, but for everybody who likes to go back in history and reminisce."

PRE-INTEGRATION HIGH SCHOOLS

A look at the high schools that served the black communities in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties before integration.

BLAKE, Tampa Originally named Don Thompson Vocational. The Yellow Jackets won FIAA state boys basketball titles in 1947, '48 and '52 and girls titles in '52 and '53. In their second season as an FHSAA member, they went 9-2-1 in 1969, defeating Leesburg 27-6 for the Class A state football title. Became a junior high in 1971 as part of integration. Tampa's new performing arts magnet high school was named Blake after longterm lobbying by the school's alumni.

GIBBS, St. Petersburg First all-black school to join the FHSAA and the only one of the schools in the area that has remained a high school ever since integration. The Gladiators won FIAA state boys basketball titles in 1951 and '66. The '66 team finished third in a national tournament. Won state boys basketball title in 1967, its first season as an FHSAA member, and again in '69. Coach Fred Dyles, who graduated from Gibbs in '51, retired in 1993 after nearly 30 years with a 674-236 record.

MARSHALL, Plant City Previously Plant City-area students attended Midway Academy, which now is Lincoln Elementary. But as the school added high school grades, it first was named Plant City Negro High School, and then in 1949 was named in honor of E.J. Marshall. In 1957, the current building opened. It became a seventh-grade center as part of integration then Marshall Middle School. Under coach Otis Williams, the Dragons won the FIAA state baseball title in 1963, beating Sanford Crooms 9-4. Coach Kelly Williams' 1964 football team didn't allow a point, finishing 9-0 and winning the Southwest Conference.

MIDDLETON, Tampa The school was built in 1933, taking over the high school grades from the growing Booker T. Washington School. The new school was named in honor of G.S. Middleton, a community leader and postal worker in the area. Over the years, the school survived two fires. A basketball powerhouse under coach William Bethel, the Tigers won eight boys and three girls FIAA state titles, including sweeps of both titles in 1949 and '50. The Tigers were FIAA state baseball runners-up in 1962, losing 9-0 to Sanford Crooms. Became a junior high in 1971 as part of integration, and later the Middleton Middle School of Technology.

MICKENS SCHOOL, Dade City Won FIAA state baseball titles in 1960 and 1968. Now, the Moore-Mickens Education Center, it is a technical school.

MOTON SCHOOL, Brooksville Built in 1939. Named for Robert R. Moton, the son of slaves, who was an author and prominent educator who succeeded Booker T. Washington as president of historically black Tuskegee Institute in Alabama (now known as Tuskegee University). The Bulldogs had a fierce rivalry with Mickens in Dade City and Booker T. Washington High in Inverness. Among its prominent athletic alumni is Maulty Moore, who after leading then-coach Raymond McDougal's teams to a pair of Mid-Eight Conference football titles went on to play for the unbeaten 1972 Miami Dolphins and the winless 1976 Bucs. The campus now is the Robert R. Moton Early Intervention Center.

PINELLAS, Clearwater The school on Palmetto Street opened in 1954, replacing Clearwater Colored School, which started offering high school classes in 1931. Students came from North Pinellas and West Pasco, where Booker T. Washington School only went through eighth grade. Closed in 1968, later becoming Clearwater Comprehensive Middle School. The Panthers generally didn't have outstanding teams because the program didn't have much financing, said former football and basketball coach Edward Jenkins.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Inverness Opened in 1949. First named Inverness School, but was changed in 1950 to Booker T. Washington when somebody used red paint to inscribe the words "n----- school" on a sign at the school, according to a history completed for a Booker T. Washington student reunion. Became Inverness Middle School after integration. The Hornets won FIAA state titles in boys basketball and boys and girls track. According to longtime coach Archie Dabney, who went on to coach basketball at Crystal River and later served as principal at Lecanto High, most of the school's trophies and uniforms were burned after integration.

- Compiled by Mike Stephenson with information from Times files, interviews and The History of the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association 1932-68, a book

PRE-INTEGRATION HIGH SCHOOLS

A look at the high schools that served the black communities in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties before integration.

BLAKE, Tampa

Originally named Don Thompson Vocational. The Yellow Jackets won FIAA state boys basketball titles in 1947, '48 and '52 and girls titles in '52 and '53. In their second season as an FHSAA member, they went 9-2-1 in 1969, defeating Leesburg 27-6 for the Class A state football title. Became a junior high in 1971 as part of integration. Tampa's new performing arts magnet high school was named Blake after longterm lobbying by the school's alumni.

GIBBS, St. Petersburg

First all-black school to join the FHSAA and the only one of the schools in the area that has remained a high school ever since integration. The Gladiators won FIAA state boys basketball titles in 1951 and '66. The '66 team finished third in a national tournament. Won state boys basketball title in 1967, its first season as an FHSAA member, and again in '69. Coach Fred Dyles, who graduated from Gibbs in '51, retired in 1993 after nearly 30 years with a 674-236 record.

MARSHALL, Plant City

Previously Plant City-area students attended Midway Academy, which now is Lincoln Elementary. But as the school added high school grades, it first was named Plant City Negro High School, and then in 1949 was named in honor of E.J. Marshall. In 1957, the current building opened. It became a seventh-grade center as part of integration then Marshall Middle School. Under coach Otis Williams, the Dragons won the FIAA state baseball title in 1963, beating Sanford Crooms 9-4. Coach Kelly Williams' 1964 football team didn't allow a point, finishing 9-0 and winning the Southwest Conference.

MIDDLETON, Tampa

The school was built in 1933, taking over the high school grades from the growing Booker T. Washington School. The new school was named in honor of G.S. Middleton, a community leader and postal worker in the area. Over the years, the school survived two fires. A basketball powerhouse under coach William Bethel, the Tigers won eight boys and three girls FIAA state titles, including sweeps of both titles in 1949 and '50. The Tigers were FIAA state baseball runners-up in 1962, losing 9-0 to Sanford Crooms. Became a junior high in 1971 as part of integration, and later the Middleton Middle School of Technology.

MICKENS SCHOOL, Dade City

Won FIAA state baseball titles in 1960 and 1968. Now, the Moore-Mickens Education Center, it is a technical school.

MOTON SCHOOL, Brooksville

Built in 1939. Named for Robert R. Moton, the son of slaves, who was an author and prominent educator who succeeded Booker T. Washington as president of historically black Tuskegee Institute in Alabama (now known as Tuskegee University). The Bulldogs had a fierce rivalry with Mickens in Dade City and Booker T. Washington High in Inverness. Among its prominent athletic alumni is Maulty Moore, who after leading then-coach Raymond McDougal's teams to a pair of Mid-Eight Conference football titles went on to play for the unbeaten 1972 Miami Dolphins and the winless 1976 Bucs. The campus now is the Robert R. Moton Early Intervention Center.

PINELLAS, Clearwater

The school on Palmetto Street opened in 1954, replacing Clearwater Colored School, which started offering high school classes in 1931. Students came from North Pinellas and West Pasco, where Booker T. Washington School only went through eighth grade. Closed in 1968, later becoming Clearwater Comprehensive Middle School. The Panthers generally didn't have outstanding teams because the program didn't have much financing, said former football and basketball coach Edward Jenkins.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Inverness

Opened in 1949. First named Inverness School, but was changed in 1950 to Booker T. Washington when somebody used red paint to inscribe the words "n----- school" on a sign at the school, according to a history completed for a Booker T. Washington student reunion. Became Inverness Middle School after integration. The Hornets won FIAA state titles in boys basketball and boys and girls track. According to longtime coach Archie Dabney, who went on to coach basketball at Crystal River and later served as principal at Lecanto High, most of the school's trophies and uniforms were burned after integration.

- Compiled by Mike Stephenson with information from Times files, interviews and The History of the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association 1932-68, a book published in 1982.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright