TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

Searching AP's Black History

ADVERTISEMENT

By DOUG CARMAN

Highlands Today

Published: July 18, 2008

AVON PARK - The Depot Museum has exhibits on everything from local baseball legends to the history of the brown-and-serve roll that was invented in Avon Park. But Larry Levey, president of the Historical Society of Avon Park, acknowledges that the museum has almost nothing to show on the city's black history.

After searching his archives, the only things Levey could find, other than baseball memorabilia of Tom "Flash" Gordon and Hal McRae, was a school desegregation plan, an old manuscript titled "A History of Negro Education Avon Park, Florida," and a single photo of a black couple.

"They were few and far between," Levey said, describing the black history documents and artifacts he had available to the Southside Community Redevelopment Agency members last Thursday. He appealed to them in an effort to get them and the city's black community to help out.

So far, the historical society began collecting names of some local black residents suggested by Southside CRA Chairwoman Shirley Johnson who could contribute some written or oral historical perspectives, and he said he also tapped Avon Park Councilwoman and local NAACP president Brenda Gray for help. Multiple messages to Johnson after the meeting were not returned.

At the front of the museum Monday - which coincidentally used to be the whites-only waiting room for the old train station - Levey and his wife, museum director Elaine Levey, said this was something they wanted to expand on since Larry became the society's president two years ago.

"We did have a difficult time finding pictures that reflected the black community," Larry Levey said.

He compared his collection to what the Sebring Historical Society had on black history and hoped to have something like that covering Avon Park eventually. Sebring had multiple subjects, profiles of several individual community figures, and clippings and photos covering everything from E.O. Douglas to the Greater Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Carole Goad, the archivist at the Sebring Historical Society, said she was in a similar position as Levey's when she started. She ended up getting help from Barbara Walker, who was a former cafeteria worker at the all-black E. O. Douglas High School 45 years ago, while she also went through clippings of old newspapers and anything people would give to her.

From events to individual profiles, the two gathered more than two 5-inch ring binders full of articles dating as far back as the 1960s. Some of it even involved Hopewell Academy in Avon Park.

"I made it my business to come up with a history for African Americans in Sebring," Goad said. "I just had to dig and dig and dig."

But when told about Levey's faded, yellowed manuscript on the history of black education in Avon Park, Goad thought Levey had a rare treasure. "I'll do anything to get that."

Gray suggested to Levey Thursday afternoon to look at E.O. Douglas in Sebring. She thought they would have a lot of Avon Park photos.

As far as the society's current lack of black historical items, Gray wished Levey's efforts would have started with his predecessors.

"There was just not enough diligent interest from the historical society to reach out," Gray said. "The history of Avon Park doesn't end with Main Street, it ends with the entire boundaries of Avon Park."

Doug Carman can be reached at 386-5838 or dcarman@highlandstoday.com

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT