one brick at a time

Local historian and community activist Fred Hearns is releasing his first book, Getting It Done – Rebuilding Black America Brick by Brick.

Hearns is the Director of the Department of Community Affairs with the City of Tampa. He graduated from Middleton High School in 1966, and founded the school’s alumni association. The school closed in 1971 because of desegregation, and Hearns led the effort to renovate and reopen the school, beginning with a conversation at a 1991 reunion. An outdoor pavilion at the school bears his name.

Middleton High is on 22nd St. midway between MLK, and Hillsborough at E. Osborne.

Local Black communities are receiving face-lifts all over the county with renovations and new property projects. In his book, Fred Hearns, gives readers his own formula for saving and restoring vital institutions in black neighborhoods. Hearns details how he and a small group of dedicated volunteers worked for twelve years to get their old high school, George Schroeder Middleton Senior High School, rebuilt. Their persistence resulted in the new $50 million facility constructed in the same all-black neighborhood that the school stood in from 1934 until it was closed for desegregation purposes in 1971.

Mr. Hearns agreed to answer a few questions through an email exchange, and we learned a bit more about him and his project:

Can you tell us more about the book? The book is about the twelve-year journey of the Middleton Senior High School Alumni Association, Inc. striving successfully to reestablish the formerly all-black school in its original Tampa, Florida neighborhood. As co-founder of the association and as president for the organization’s first nine years (1991-2000) I had an up-close-and-personal vantage point of the ups and downs of this experience.

Why did you decide to write about your experiences? The book is a road map for similar groups with similar goals to “get it done” by following some basic steps to success. I wrote the book because I want this same formula for making positive things happen to be duplicated all across America. A few dedicated people can do it by working with the government to restore hope and opportunity for future generations in distressed neighborhoods.

Are the citizens of Tampa better off since Middleton High was revived? Tampa is much better off because Middleton High School reopened in 2002: Some 1,000 young people are able to attend high school in their neighborhood (another 1,000 live outside the two-mile radius). It gives the community a stake in what happens at the school and vice versa.

Twelve years seems like a long time. What was the most difficult part? The most difficult part of the twelve years was keeping the group’s hopes alive. I needed much prayer and faith just to keep going myself. But I knew that with perseverance toward a just cause, victory would one day be ours.

Besides Middleton, what other local buildings/institutions have benefited from recent renovations? West Tampa’s Howard W. Blake High School, which was Tampa’s other all-black high school for many years, also closed in 1971. It reopened in 1997 just one block from the former school campus in a new building (as Middleton did). These are, in my opinion, the two most significant revivals of black institutions in Tampa in the last fifty years.

Are there other local buildings or institutions that need a “face lift,” but getting no attention? There is no good answer for this question. Two buildings that are scheduled to be revived are the St. James Episcopal Church Building in Central Park Village (it will be converted to a Black History Museum by the Tampa Housing Authority), and the Centro Español Building in West Tampa (former home of the Tampa Urban League).

How did you and your family come to live in Tampa? My maternal great grandfather John Bates Henry and his wife, Mary, came to Tampa from Monticello, Florida around 1920. My paternal grandmother, Roxie Gilchrist, came to Tampa from Tallahassee around 1938. My parents Samuel Hearns and Grace Tillman Clark both grew up in Tampa. My mother graduated from Middleton in 1948 and moved to New York. I was born at Fordham Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. November 28, 1948. My father left Tampa in 1948 on a basketball scholarship to Florida A&M University (it was Florida A&M College then). He has lived in Broward County, Florida since the 1950s. My mother returned to Tampa in the early 1950s and has lived in East Tampa ever since.

My mother worked for Tampa’s old Negro Hospital, Clara Frye Hospital (photo), for many years and was a Hillsborough County employee until her retirement. My father went into public education in Broward County and retired as a high school principal.

What’s the best thing about Tampa Bay? There are many opportunities for people who are willing to seek God’s favor and use their brains and hands more than their mouths. Worst thing? People who do the opposite!

What’s the worst thing in your old neighborhood? The many young people who stand around most of the day with no real positive purpose in their lives. Best thing? Middleton Senior High School and the magnet programs in mathematics, science, engineering and aeronautics, right in “the hood.”

What’s the coolest thing you have ever done? I flew a single-engine airplane (with help, of course, from the pilot) for about five minutes in 1971 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was like being among God’s angels for a moment! I also rank right up there contributing to the birth of my first child, Ricky, and seeing his face in Womens’ Hospital on May 21, 1975.

Getting It Done – Rebuilding Black America Brick by Brick will be released at a book signing this Saturday, February 17th at 1pm at Books For Thought, located at 10910 N 56th Street in Tampa by USF.