Newtown Alive

Fredd 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’s youth council, Atkins registered voters in high school, and attended school board meetings. Activism continued in college. He conducted research for the Miami attorney who filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Sarasota. Atkins’ trajectory was established early. He is one of Sarasota’s longest serving city commissioners, having spent 18 years in public service. He was Sarasota’s mayor three times.

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 grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

“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 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 grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

John 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 beaches.

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 grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Glossie 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 oldest Black house of worship in town, Bethlehem Baptist Church.

“Oh goodness, we had good service and the choir, everything was good.” The mother of Sarasota’s first African American mayor was a surrogate parent to neighbors’ children. For 35 years, she worked as a domestic sewing, cooking, cleaning and rearing other parents’ children. These days, she joins other mature women of Newtown to crochet scarves, quilts, and caps. “God has been good to me. Yep. Oh my goodness. I’ve come a long way. He brought me and still’s got me going strong.”

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 grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Dr. 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 Award from the Sarasota County NAACP, and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Sarasota African-American Chamber of Commerce.

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 grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Mr. 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 expanded into a cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Henrietta 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 cultural heritage tourism initiative. Oldham is a journalist, marketer and chief motivation officer.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please click here to take our brief survey.

Lymus 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 grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the national endowment for the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the national endowment for the humanities.

To tell us how you enjoyed this episode and help ensure funding for similar projects in the future, please take our brief survey.