Shows
Letters from a Glass HouseThe Time is NowThis episode features special guest Vickie Oldham, President and CEO of the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition.SAACC’s goal is to open an art center and history museum. The precursor of this historic preservation initiative is “Newtown Alive.” Led by Oldham, the project traces the history of Newtown, one of Sarasota’s oldest communities.Newtown Alive products include a research report, a book, historical markers, a documentary short, a guided trolley tour, traveling exhibition, walking tours, a mobile app, oral history interviews, an inventory of historic structures, a podcast series, and newtownalive.org, the official...2024-07-3053 min
Welcome to FloridaEpisode 170: Sarasota's Black HistoryA closed meeting in Israel resulted in Ron DeSantis allowing a foreign company to disperse its supposed miracle cure for blue green algae in waters across the state without the product previously being tested for potential negative environmental or human health effects.Our guests this episode are Vickie Oldham, president and CEO of the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition and founder of the Newtown Alive trolley tours in Sarasota, and Brenda Watty, a member of the Marvelettes Motown group who lives in Sarasota and performs on the tours. They join us to discuss African American history in S...2023-09-1936 min
Newtown AliveElder Willie Mayes Talks About Starting a Business and His Sister Rosa Lee Thomas Discusses The Public Health Impact of a LandfillThe late Elder Willie Mayes wasproud of the family church that began in his parent’s home with six members. Hebegan pastoring New Zion Primitive Baptist Church in 1984 and operated a cementfinishing business for 45 years. The company is among theoldest Black owned enterprises in Sarasota. At age 14, he stopped attendingschool to help his family make ends meet financially. Mayes earned meager wagesdoing farm work in Fruitville near where the family lived. Children in thesettlement of approximately 50 res...2022-07-2925 minNewtown AliveWillie Charles Shaw on How Booker High Made Him Into a Community LeaderThe memory of Sarasota Mayor WillieCharles Shaw is razor sharp. He was reared in “BlackBottom,” a swampy land in Newtown near Maple, Palmadelia and Goodrich Avenues.There were no streetlights or curbside mail delivery. Overtown had its ownneighborhood with the same name because of its rich black soil. Shaw canquickly rattle off the locations of community landmarks, dirt paths, swimmingholes, citrus trees and bus routes; and the names of neighbors. Newtown’s dustyroads were paved in 1968, but the fir...2022-07-2953 minNewtown AliveSheila Sanders Talks About Her Drive From An Early Age to Fight For A Better TomorrowSheila Sanders has a sweet smile butdon’t mistake it for weakness. She organized a boycott of the Sarasota FederalBank as a third grader at Booker Elementary School. At that time, her classlearned money management by filling out savings deposit slips for theirpennies, dimes and nickels, but the students could not take tours of the bankas children from other schools did. Sanders persuaded her classmates to senddeposits to Palmer Bank where they could tour. Her actions foreshadowedfuture activism. The...2022-07-2937 minNewtown AliveVickie Speaks with Mary Alice Simmons and Sheila Sanders About Their Lifelong ActivismAt age eight, Mary’s family moved tounit #10 in a public housing complex in Newtown. The differences betweenconditions in Overtown where they lived before, and the new complex were likenight and day. The new apartment had abathroom, electricity, a yard with grass, and sidewalks. Before that, theirshotgun house had no running water. They pumped water for bathing, washingdishes and laundry. There were three tubs to wash, rinse garments, andrinse again. Before Clorox, a boil pot whitened clot...2022-07-2933 minNewtown AliveDr. Thomas Clyburn Discusses His Education From Integration to a Post Graduate DegreeThe late Dr. Thomas Clyburn rememberedhearing the sound of his patent leather loafers on the floor of a Blue Bird buswhile stepping out of his seat and walking down the aisle to the front, thendown the steps on the first day of school in 11th grade. The setting was unfamiliar.Earlier that day, Clyburn showed upfor class at Booker High School where he was an honors student. He was asked towait outside, near the main office and didn’t know why. A bu...2022-07-2941 minNewtown AliveBetty Jean Johnson on How She Helped Newtown Residents Gain Access to The LibraryBetty Jean Johnson is a voraciousreader who loves traveling to faraway places through books. Her teacher Prevell Barber stoked anappreciation for the written word. “I always had to read something in her classor around her. The fact of it is when I read, I travel. We didn’t have TV untillater.” Johnson thought her college education would lead to a career in socialwork. Instead, a high school class in“library procedures” changed her trajectory after graduating from Gibbs...2022-07-2928 minNewtown AliveGwendolyn Atkins on Her Career as a Public Health Nurse Devoted to Serving Her CommunityAs an African American public healthnurse, the late Gwendolyn Atkins spent a lifetime healing bruises in thecommunity. For nearly three decades, retirednurse Gwen Atkins walked door to door in Newtown neighborhoods, public housingareas and in migrant camps teaching young mothers about childcare, treatingchildhood diseases, monitoring the health of aging residents and making sureseasonal workers received medical services. She set up a makeshift clinic inthe garage of Stephens Funeral Home. “We’d treat impetigo and ring worms. She2022-07-2930 minNewtown AliveCarolyn Mason's Rise as Sarasota's First Black County CommissionerSchool integration caused trauma andfear for Carolyn Mason and rightly so. She lived in Overtown’s “BlackBottom” located at the corner of 8th Street and Central Avenue in segregatedSarasota. There was a dividing line at 3rd Street or present day FruitvilleRoad. “I call it the Mason-Dixon line. North of Fruitville was the Blackcommunity; and south was downtown for the more affluent community.” Thecommunities did not mix. “My senior year in high school should have been mybest year, but it...2022-07-2942 minNewtown AliveEstella Thomas and Her Daughter Harriet Moore On Starting a Grocery Store In NewtownEstella Moore-Thomas owned Moore's Grocers when Black residents couldn’t shop at Publix and Winn Dixie. The Newtown business that still bears the family’s name supplied the community with groceries and fresh produce. Before Moore’s, Thomas rented a store in the building once occupied by Eddy’s Fruit Stand. Harriet D. Moore, her daughter, helped operate the store. “We were one of the few stores that gave credit to people,” Harriet chimed. Moore grew up in Sidell, Florida located 50 miles east of Sarasota in a turpentine camp. The home remedies used to treat illnesses consist...2022-07-2948 minNewtown AliveAlberta Brown on How Cooking Changed Her LifeAlberta Brown is known in theNewtown community for her sumptuous southern-style Sunday throw downs – a bigroast seasoned to the bone, a large pot of collards, long pans of buttery yams,melt in your mouth mac-n-cheese and moist cornbread with crispy edges. It is as if a small army ofpeople are dinner guests. Extended family members, church friends and drop-insare part of the platoon stopping in for a plate. Brown’s family members weresharecroppers from Alachua County. They moved to Palmetto and f...2022-07-2930 minNewtown AliveFredd Atkins on Changing Education in SarasotaFredd Atkins’ story is a testament to the power that teenagers have to shake up institutional systems. He was reared in an Augustine Quarters “shotgun shack” located behind Horn’s Grocery Store on 6thStreet in Overtown. For fun, Atkins played football and baseball on sandlots and dirt courts.A Booker High School teacher Rubin Mays, reassigned to SHS during integration was Atkins’ lifesaver. Sarasota High students from Newtown successfully changed the lunch menu, added African American cheerleaders to the squad and pushed school administrators to recognize African American history for a week. As a member of the NAACP...2019-10-2955 minNewtown AliveVictoria Brown on Helping Others to Help Themselves“Ms. Vicky” is the founder of Dollar Dynasty, a nonprofit community outreach organization that doubles as a thrift store and a food distribution site for All Faiths Food Bank. She works to empower the Newtown community every day, embodying the mantra she remembers the elder women of Newtown had: “Help others to help themselves.” Ms. Vicky has lived in Newtown since the 1960s, back when segregation confined the community to its own, and its own flourished into a self-empowered, self-employed community.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and v...2019-10-2413 minNewtown AliveJohn Rivers Discusses the Fight for Social Equality and Justice in SarasotaJohn Rivers is the former president of the NAACP's Sarasota Branch. He moved to Sarasota from Mobile, Alabama in 1951 in search of work to support his family. Instead, Mr. Rivers found himself in the midst of a struggle for racial equality. In the 1950s and 1960s, Sarasota was plagued with segregation, including the segregation of local beaches. Mr. Rivers took on the challenge of the fight for integration, and became a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Sarasota. Mr. Rivers acted as a leading force in ensuring that anyone, regardless of race, could enjoy the beauty of Sarasota's...2019-10-2212 minNewtown AliveLaughing Through Life with Glossie AtkinsGlossie Atkins laughs easily and sometimes uncontrollably at the thought of fun times in Overtown. The daughter of Jay and Nettie Campbell was born in Ocala on December 3, 1917. With her sister Ruby Horton as the leader, she left central Florida to work on a farm in Sarasota picking beans and tomatoes. “We filled a bushel basket of beans for two dollars each.” The unrelenting heat and worms on the plants forced a transition from fieldwork to housework. Horton then operated a café. “We had a good time,” Atkins said, bursting into laughter without offering too many details. She attended the oldes...2019-10-1721 minNewtown AliveDr. Edward James II on Desegregation in Sarasota CountyDr. Edward E. James II has been an active civil rights leader in the Newtown community since he was a college student at Florida A&M University. He was the producer and host of the local television show "Black Almanac" for 38 years and served as a columnist and governmental reporter for the Sarasota Journal newspaper. He was a writer/associate producer of "Positively Black," a half-hour TV show on New York's WNBC-TV, and also worked as an editorial assitant for the New York Post. He has received the President's Award, a Lifetime Service Award and a Freedom Awa...2019-10-1515 minNewtown AliveWade Harvin on the Supportive Nature of the Overtown & Newtown CommunitiesMr. Harvin was born in Crescent City, Florida and moved to Sarasota in 1940 when he was five years old. He was the one of the first black bankers in Sarasota and he brought Salvation Army bell ringing to the Newtown community. He has lived in both the Newtown and “Overtown” communities, and he attends Bethlehem Baptist church, which is the oldest African-American church in Sarasota.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project ex...2019-10-1011 minNewtown AliveGwendolyn Atkins and Henrietta Gayles, the First African American Public Health Nurses in SarasotaHenrietta Gayles and Gwendolyn Atkins were the first and second African American public health nurse in the Sarasota. Interviewer Vickie Oldham and Mrs. Atkins traveled from Sarasota to Ocala, Florida to visit Mrs. Gayles at an assisted living facility. In this episode we hear memories of their careers and lives that led them to Newtown and kept them tied to the area.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cult...2019-10-0821 minNewtown AliveLymus Dixon Shares Memories of Sarasota, The Selbys and life in NewtownLymus Dixon Jr. will be missed in and outside of the Newtown community. Before his death, we captured a discussion of his life in Newtown, and the deep ties that his family had to William and Marie Selby.Vickie Oldham is leading a groundbreaking historic preservation project called “Newtown Alive.” In 2015, her team of scholars and volunteers began tracing the 100-year history of the African American community of Newtown. The project expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.Funding for this program was provided through a gran...2019-10-0133 min