The Jeb Bush Nobody Knows - Part 9: How Jeb Helped Inspire Blacks to March as One Florida

The Jeb Bush Nobody Knows - Part 9: How Jeb Helped Inspire Blacks to March as One Florida

Written by summer - a former Dem, now an independent and a FL certified teacher

FL Gov. Jeb Bush, walking tall - and inspiring FL blacks to do the same.

If you've ever spent any length of time in Orlando, you've probably noticed the tremendous disparity existing between the wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods.

However, this past month, many FL blacks decided to celebrate a series of very positive economic and educational advancements now developing in Orlando.

And so, this year, in celebration, Orlando blacks decided to peacefully march across a different street to honor the late civil rights leader, Martin Luther King.

Their new marching route led them across Division Avenue.

Division Avenue is located almost smack in the middle of the city, and has a history of dividing Orlando in more ways than one.

Less than a 20-minute drive away from Division, in one direction, is the toniest neighborhood in Orlando -- a gated, walled community where billionaire sport celebrities, CEOs and movie stars reside.

Yet, if you drive a shorter distance in the other direction, you'll find a street lined with liquor stores, pawnshops, and strip joints, where police make arrests for drugs and prostitution almost every night.

It is near this area, so popular with law enforcement, where you will soon find: a new law school, set to open in the fall of 2002.

This new law school is expected to primarily serve a minority adult student population.

There is a real story behind this particular law school -- and how it came to be.

Many years ago, Virgil Hawkins, a black man, unsuccessfully tried to gain admission to the University of Florida College of Law. Shortly thereafter, in a lawsuit backed by the NAACP, he sued FL.

FL convinced him to drop his lawsuit, promising FL would build a new law school. And, this new law school would primarily serve minority students.

In 1951, in response to Mr. Hawkins's lawsuit, FL established a public law school at the FL A&M University (known as "F.A.M.U").

The new FAMU Law School was a source of great pride to many FL blacks.

Alcee Hastings, one of FL's most well known black leaders, graduated from FAMU Law School, as did many other blacks who likewise became practicing lawyers.

But in the mid 1960's, the FL legislature decided to cut the state budget, and within those cuts - they cut all funding to this particular law school.

FL's black community was stunned and horrified that a law school which had been built as a settlement of a lawsuit would now be dismantled. Law books from the FAMU Law School were then transferred to another public law school in FL, as explained here.

For over thirty years - thirty years - the FL blacks tried to convince governor after governor after governor to restore the FAMU Law School.

No governor would listen to them.

But in 1998, FL elected a governor who actually does listen to all the people.

Mid-way through his term, Gov. Jeb Bush, with the stroke of his pen, and his signature on a bill, restored funding to this law school. "I'm here with joy in my heart to right a wrong that happened a long time ago," he declared.
Click here to see the FAMU newspaper article in the source link -- including Gov. Bush's above remarks -- as FAMU enthusiastically reported this emotional event under the headline:

FLORIDA GOVERNOR SIGNS
HISTORIC BILL TO
RE-ESTABLISH FAMU'S
COLLEGE OF LAW

Since then, few people mention that Gov. Jeb Bush is the governor who righted what many blacks perceived as a gross wrong. Few people seem to recall that Gov. Jeb Bush is the one governor who corrected an injustice that blacks in FL had complained of for more than a quarter of a century.

This year, when the Orlando Sentinel published a different marching route for the annual MLK Day celebration, the article cited various reasons for the renewed spirit of the local black community -- new businesses being developed near Division Avenue, new jobs - and:

" The coming of the Florida A&M University law school ….also signifies a western renaissance."

Yet, the name "Jeb Bush" was omitted in this article explaining what helped move blacks to change their parade route. And, despite a black leader who said at the signing of the FAMU bill -- while "trumpets blared" in the background --

"Gov. Bush, we owe you a debt of gratitude,"

I doubt anyone will suggest the new law school be named after "Jeb Bush." Frankly, I am not even holding my breath for a plaque on a wall, disclosing the name "Jeb Bush" as the one governor who allowed his power as governor to be accessed by the black community in order to restore justice.

However, between you and me, here is what truly did happen on the evening of Martin Luther King Day in Orlando, FL, January 2002, plaque or no plaque:

FL blacks crossed Division Avenue for the first time -- inspired, in part, by the signature of Governor Jeb Bush. Finally, they marched as one Florida.

Map of the new 2002 MLK Celebration Route -- across Division Avenue, Orlando, FL

FL blacks walking tall by crossing a racial divide --
Division Avenue -- on Martin Luther King Day,
Orlando, FL, January 2002

BTW, here is the Orlando Sentinel article that I quoted from in the above editorial -- see bold, in above editorial, and matching bold text below:

March across Division is signal of unity

By Joy Wallace Dickinson | Sentinel Staff Writer

Posted January 14, 2002

It's been nearly four decades since America's giant of civil rights, Martin Luther King Jr., visited Orlando.

But it's a sure bet that if he were still alive and came here next Sunday, he'd be at the head of another historic march -- across Division Avenue, the city's symbolic divide between its white and black worlds.

In past years, Orlando's candlelight vigil and march on the Sunday before the national holiday honoring King followed a route from City Hall to nearby First United Methodist Church, a white-spired downtown sanctuary with a traditionally white congregation.

The change to cross Division bears significance especially in light of the Sept. 11 tragedies, said Betty Lowery, executive director of the Greater Orlando Chapter of the National Conference for Community and Justice, or NCCJ.

The group, formerly the National Conference of Christians and Jews, has worked with Orlando on the annual vigil since the inception of the city's Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission, Lowery said. The 2002 march will head west into the heart of traditionally black downtown Orlando, ending with a service at Shiloh Baptist Church, and will cross Division as a symbol of the need to break through all the barriers that divide people, Lowery said.

"It was the leaders of the NCCJ's Interfaith Council that said, 'Let's do this,' said Mary Ellen Dugan, one of the event's organizers. "This was their dream."

Avenue has a past

The passage across Division Avenue reverberates with symbolism from Orlando's past.

"This was traditionally a very segregated community," Orlando businesswoman and library trustee Jackie Perkins said recently. Division Avenue "defined the separation." Division is the first major north-south thoroughfare west of the railroad tracks, not far from the swath of concrete Interstate 4 cut through black neighborhoods in the late 1950s.

After emancipation, it was common for black Americans to live in separate settlements such as Eatonville or Winter Park's Hannibal Square, said Geraldine Thompson, Valencia Community College's equal-opportunity administrator and board president of the African-American history group PAST INC.

One such community was Jonestown, well east of Division near South Street and Bumby Avenue, Thompson said.

But by the early 1940s, Jonestown was gone, the victim of flooding and of a city housing policy that designated two other, western areas of the city "for negro residences."

In 1939 "a delegation of white property owners in the vicinity of East South Street appeared before" city authorities "to protest the rebuilding of a Negro house which had burned in Jonestown," says Eve Bacon's History of Orlando.

The delegation "claimed a city agreement had guaranteed white occupancy" in the area.

The house was not rebuilt, and by 1943 the Orlando Planning and Zoning Commission had agreed on two city areas for black residences.

Division Avenue was the eastern boundary of one; Hughey Avenue, one block from Division, was the boundary for the other.

For years, paved roads stopped at Division, Thompson said; west of the line, many city services were not available.

Though that's no longer the case, few would argue the legacy of segregation has not left its mark on the separate worlds of historically black and white downtown Orlando.

Many see a brighter future for the west side of Division, however. On Dec. 12, a groundbreaking at West Church Street and Division Avenue marked the start of the $63 million Hughes Supply complex. The coming of the Florida A&M University law school and a federal courthouse also signifies a western renaissance.

Dawning of new day

Organizers see the multicultural service that will conclude the candlelight march at Shiloh Baptist Church of Orlando as the sign of a new day as well.

The church is rich in history. Founded in 1899, Shiloh Baptist was led for 38 years by T.C. Collier, a friend and contemporary of Martin Luther King Sr.'s. T.C. Collier's son, attorney James Collier, has been an important civil-rights pioneer in the city.

"Every faith tradition" stands for King's ideas of "peace and justice," said David Heinze of the NCCJ Interfaith Council. "We're working from a general theme linked to the thought that 'the tree of extremism cannot thrive in the soil of justice.' "

The NCCJ planners hope people leave the vigil and the service at Shiloh moved to do some really "heartfelt thinking," Heinze said.

Lowery agrees. "Our theme will be planting the seeds of respect and inclusion," she said. "We're going to end with a call to action. . . . There will be a lot of symbolism, a lot of opportunities for people to become engaged" in the theme of crossing boundaries to cultivate unity.

For historian Thompson, the change from a traditionally white church to Shiloh signals "a major change."

"When we talk about diversity," she said, "we all have a responsibility to go outside our comfort zone. AfricanAmericans have long shouldered the burdens of integration" by going outside their traditional communities into white schools, white stores, white restaurants. Having the service in a historically black neighborhood "sends a signal," she said.

For Lowery, the event's layers of symbolism point to a common cause. "We want to be a community that's united," she said.

"We want to send a message that Martin Luther King was a hero for all of us," she said.

Joy Wallace Dickinson can be reached at jdickinson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6082.

Copyright © 2002, Orlando Sentinel

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