Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 4-9-19

Local
Middleton Honors Legacies Of BTW, DuBois, Mays And Bethune
BY FRED HEARNS
In 1872, George
Schroeder Middleton was born in Charleston, South Carolina to William and Lucinda Middleton. In the 1890s, looking for a new life far from the Middleton Plantation in Charleston that he knew as a boy, he moved to Tampa. By the time he died here in 1933, he had built a reputation as an effi- cient federal employee, a smart businessman, a com- munity organizer and as a strong advocate for the edu- cation of Black children in Hillsborough County.
In his name, the Mid- dleton High School Alumni Association will hold its final planning meeting this Saturday, April 13, 2019, 9:30 a. m. at the Tampa Police De- partment District III Of- fice, 3808 N. 22nd Street, for the upcoming Miss Middleton, Homecom- ing Kings & Queens
Scholarship Ball. The ball is part of Tiger Weekend April 26-27, 2019 at the Marriott Hotel Westshore, 1001 N. Westshore Boule- vard.
All ads for the souvenir booklet must be submitted by April 13. E-mail ads to fhearns@netzero.net or bring them to the April 13 meeting. The deadline for tickets is Monday April 22. Go to paypal.me/gsmalum- nischolarship, visit African Extravaganza at 1409 Tampa Park Plaza or pick up tickets at this final planning meet- ing.
For ticket informa- tion e-mail Yvonne Dou- glas at yvonnedouglas1968@ya hoo.com.
Middleton lived with Isaac and Polly Howard in their Tampa Heights home when he settled here. Not long after freedom came to Tampa’s enslaved Blacks on May 5, 1864, Howard
MARIE ARLENE MYERS THORNTON
...Miss Middleton High, 1956
landed employment with the United States Custom Serv- ice, most likely upon Cap- tain James McKay’s recommendation. Howard had been enslaved to McKay before the Civil War. Margaret Jane was the sixth of the Howards eight children. Middleton mar- ried Margaret on June 27, 1917. The Middletons lived at 203 Scott Street. They did not have any children.
Sunday, April 14, 2019 will mark 60 years to the day that Margaret died in Tampa. She is buried at Me- morial Park Cemetery, three blocks from the original Middleton High School site in East Tampa.
Middleton became a postman early in his career in Tampa. In 1922, he was a founder of the Central Indus- trial (later, Central Life) In- surance Company. From 1922 until his death in 1933, he was the company’s secre- tary and its treasurer (1928 to 1933). George Middle- ton served the company along with Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, who was Central Industrial’s Vice President.
Yet Middleton was best known for his activism in civil rights, education, fair employment and business ownership for Blacks. In 1909, he became president of the Negro State Fair Associ- ation. This group brought renowned scholar and NAACP Founder Dr. W. E. B. DuBois to Tampa in 1916. Four years earlier, Middleton was part of a committee that arranged for
Booker T. Washington to speak at the Casino Building on what now is the campus of the University of Tampa. The county’s first senior/ju- nior high school for Blacks, Booker T. Washington, opened in 1925. Middleton also founded the Tampa Service Club and the Negro Branch of the local YMCA.
From 1926 to 1928 (when Benjamin Mays was exec- utive secretary of the Tampa Urban League), Middleton and Mays pushed for a sen- ior high school to be built in East Tampa’s College Hill neighborhood. When Mid- dleton died November 19, 1933, Urban League Educa- tion Committee Chairman Andrew J. Ferrell, Sr., and others persuaded the Hillsborough County Board of Education to name the city’s first building con- structed to serve as a senior high school for their col- league, George. The school opened at 4302 N. 24th Street, in 1934. That campus now houses A. J. Ferrell Mid- dle School. The new Middle- ton High School campus opened in 2002 at 4801 N. 22nd Street.
Recommendations For The City Of Tampa Municipal Election Runoff April 23rd
Mayor
David Straz
City Council District 1
Walter Smith, II
City Council District 3
John Dingfelder
City Council District 5
Jeffrey Rhodes
TUESDAY, APRIL 23RD.
PAGE 4 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2019