---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “a Mad Escape” cc&d (v255) (the May/June 2015 22 year anniversary issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Salvation (issues edition) the cc&d Jan. - June 2015 collection book		get the 318 page Jan. - June 2015 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Salvation (issues / chapbooks edition) - the cc&d Jan. - June 2015 collection book		get the 410 page Jan. - June 2015 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Gator, Brad, and P. J.: Race Relations in a Florida Citrus Village During the Depression.

Dr (Ms.) Michael S. Whitt

    Bradford Paine Blake came from a background of adventuresome, creative, and progressive people. Born and raised until he was 10 in Massachusetts, his family moved to Florida in 1921. Brad, as he was called by family and friends, aspired to be an architect. He spent two years studying architecture at the University of Florida. At the end of his second year, he was told by two doctors that he should drop his ambitions to be a full time architect. He inherited essential tremors from his father. The doctors said to remain able to function well; he needed some manual labor in his work. He began working as a private surveyor and building contractor. He used the architectural knowledge and skills he had acquired at the university in surveying, drawing and interpreting blue prints, and other tasks.
    In 1936 at age 25, this slender, 6' tall, blue eyed, blonde was appointed as a supervisor in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the area. This aspect of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, among other things, dealt with building and repairing infrastructures. Brad supervised the building of much needed clay roads through the rapidly growing citrus groves, and out of the village of Frostproof where Brad lived, toward nearby communities. Other tasks performed by the WPA were the rehabilitation of older and the building of new public edifices such as libraries, government buildings, and public schools. The WPA also extended power lines to farm houses not served by private companies. Another section of the WPA involved the hiring of unemployed literate persons to teach basic literacy skills to illiterate persons. Talented artists were subsidized to create art for public entertainment, education, and beauty. These and other projects helped the troubled economy get back to a semblance of normal functioning by creating jobs.
    The only one paved road in the area was asphalt, 53 miles long and 9 feet wide. It ran in between Haines City and Ft. Meade. The other roads before the clay ones began to be built were made of ‘dirt.’ Dirt is in quotes because there is virtually no dirt in this section of Florida as people from other states know it; there is only sand. The sand ranges from snow white to ebony with all shades in between, but it is still sand. I cannot take credit for this observation. I lived in Frostproof until I left for college in 1961. My soul mate and I lived there off and on from spring 1993 to winter 1995. We were making changes in our lives moving from being university professors to free lance work of various kinds. Being a native, I accepted dirt as the proper designation for the sand my dad dumped in the back yard of my parent’s cottage where we stayed. I wanted the soil to create a garden. Sand or not with some cow manure, it turned out to be a productive and lovely garden with enough vegetables to share with my folks and some of the neighbors.
    My husband was an army brat who lived all over the world until his father left the U.S. Army when he was nine. At this his family settled in Columbus, Georgia where they have real dirt. He was the one who made the observation of the ubiquitousness of sand in that part of Florida. As usual with his wry and keen sense of humor he provided me with many a laugh about Florida ‘dirt.’ However, since Floridians call the stuff dirt; dirt it shall be henceforth without quotation marks. Also, it does not sound right designate a route as a sand road. These dirt roads became impassable during rainy times unless saw dust from the lumber company was put on top of the dirt. When the saw dust ran out, less effective wood chips were used.
    On April l6, 1936 when Brad went to work, he had no idea of the excitement that would ensue and the crises with which he would have to deal. At the time of the incident with which this story is concerned Brad was working in a private capacity as a surveyor with his friend and partner in this work, Moses Johnson, a black man known as ‘Gator’, a nickname he acquired as a boy. He was around 40 now with a slender, strong body. They were working together running grade levels. They were filling in low spots on uneven land to make it smoother and improve the property.
    Gator and Brad were hired by Bill Carnation, the owner/operator of the local movie theatre to work on a piece of his land. Since the dirt was being supplied by the County, P. J. Langford, a prominent local citizen and County Commissioner, was present. P.J. was an attractive man in his middle fifties. Relevant to subsequent events P. J. was old enough to be Brad’s father. He had been Brad’s Sunday school teacher when he was a boy, until Brad lost interest in church in late childhood.
    Not only was the activity on which Brad and Gator were working involved in county business. it was also related to Brad’s responsibilities as a WPA supervisor. The dirt used to fill the low places in Mr. Carnations and other local residents land was removed by the county government to get at the clay underneath for the work of building the roads Brad was supervising. To accomplish this task and get the dirt to the appointed places, P. J. was using some old Model T dump trucks in an effort to save money for Polk County. As in many places during the Great Depression, the county was deeply in debt for that time.
    When Brad was interviewed for a part of this story, he said, “Today, we smile or even laugh at what we consider to be a tiny sum. At the time it was huge. This $18,000 debt was considered a burdensome and unhealthy problem for the political economy. P. J. did succeed heroically by several means to eliminate the entire debt and build a surplus of the same amount!”
    The trucks he was using were made only until 1926. This was the last year any Model T Trucks were made which had no cabs in the front and no mechanical lifts. These were already features of the 1927 models. In the old kind, the truck was supposed to be loaded with more dirt in the back of the truck bed than the front. This greatly facilitated unloading. The load was held intact by the tailgate and three hooks designed for unloading the truck as quickly and with as little manual labor as possible. In order to make sure the excess dirt fell off the back by itself the hooks had to be released prior to or at the same time as the tailgate. If the latter was opened too soon, all of the advantage of the more efficient unloading preparations was nullified. Most of the dirt had to be unloaded by a man with a shovel. The hook on the front controlled the two on the back. A person in the drivers’ seat could operate the whole apparatus from there.
    Sometime in the unloading process Gator’s hoe accidently got stuck in the hook in the front. Disentangling the hoe was an easy task for Gator. He was good at what he did. P. J., a rather high strung nervous person, panicked and apparently ‘lost it.’ He suddenly ran over and grabbed the hoe Gator held in his hands, and up to this point, was disengaging it from the hook. A tug of war ensued for a few seconds. Brad, who was some distance away with his surveying instrument, ran over to the two men. Initially, he thought he would be helping P. J. It looked as though the younger, stronger Gator was getting the best of him. It was the Jim Crow Era and Brad was afraid of what would happen to Gator if he even minimally harmed this respected leader. Equally important were the possibilities of serious injuries to either man.
    Surprisingly, when Brad reached the men, the situation had drastically changed. In fact, it had reversed itself. Now P. J. was definitely getting the better of Gator. He had dropped the hoe and picked up another tool Gator was using. He obviously intended to use it to whack Gator over the head. Right in the middle of P. J.’s aggressive action Brad managed to raise his arm and catch the tool/weapon before it hit Gator’s head. By this time according to Brad, Gator was understandably terrified. He was totally scared out of his wits. He arose that morning expecting to spend a regular and peaceful day working with his friend and partner. Now here he was in a novel and horrifying situation with a prominent and powerful white man who could and seemed to want to do him great harm.
    Brad said, “Run as fast as you can, Gator!” Gator did not hesitate; he headed for a thick clump of bushes at break neck speed. After Brad’s active interference in defending Gator from P. J.’s attempt to harm him P. J. told him, “Brad, you hold him here until I can go home, get my gun, and fix Gator!” How P. J. could think Brad was in sympathy with his intention to hurt Gator, after his actions in stopping him from using his weapon and telling his black friend to run, is anybody’s guess. As soon as P. J. left in his car, Brad motioned for Gator to come from behind the clump of bushes.
    “Damn,” Gator cried hysterically. “What should I do Brad?”
    “Get in your car and go to the nearest woods as quickly as possible. Go as far as you can into the woods until this ridiculous incident blows over. I’ll find you with food and water.”
    “Thank you, dear friend,” Gator responded and then headed for his vehicle. “See you later,” he said over his shoulder. Poor Gator was undone enough by his ordeal he turned the wrong way when he came to the road going past the Carnation property. Whoops he thought I’m going in the direction of P. J.’s house! He quickly tried to turn around, but got stuck when he backed off the road to make the turn. Under some thick brush, a ditch awaited to hang him up. He tried to get the car out, but he was stuck. His 20 horsepower Model T Motor did not have the power to pull him and his vehicle out.
    At this point in his part of the interview, Brad prefaced his remarks with the providential words, “Some things are just destined to happen.” Soon after Gator got stuck in the ditch, a local white man, Charles Lyles, who was employed by the lumber company and was driving their truck, came by.
    He stopped, jumped out of the truck, and asked, “Can I help, Gator?”
    “I sure hope so Mr. Lyles.” Gator replied. Meanwhile, Brad had found a piece of wire lying around which was a yard, even a little less, long.
    He said to the two men, “Here let me see if I can get this around the axles of each vehicle.”
    “Brad,” Gator said gratefully. “You’re my guardian angel. You too, Mr. Lyles.”
    The first few times he fastened it to the two vehicles, it slipped off. Time was passing and P. J. did not live very far away. Things were getting increasingly desperate. The wire finally held on the vehicles and Gator came out of the ditch. He drove as quickly as possible to the nearest woodlands out of the angry P. J.’s reach. Coincidentally, the sympathetic Charles later married one of Brad’s progressive Uncle’s granddaughters. In the meantime, as the rescue effort was occurring, several white people had gathered nearby. All of them were in sympathy with Gator. This was in spite of the fact that many, maybe all of them, still held deeply ingrained racial prejudices typical of that time in the south as well as some of the rest of the country. Everyone cheered when Gator made his escape. Moreover, just as Brad figured, the incident soon blew over.
    Florida, largely because of the diversity of its population, was not quite as racially biased as what is called the Deep South—-Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Frostproof reflected the diverse cultural backgrounds of the state’s population. Besides New England and the rest of the Northeast and Europe, Florida already had dust bowl refugees, other folks from the Midwest, and parts of the far west. There were also Latin Americans, mainly Mexicans, and Seminole Indians.
    There were also many people who had migrated to Florida from other parts of the old Confederacy. Only the most northern part the peninsula was in om it. The former Confederates’ attitudes were reflected by certain arrangements and practices. No black people were allowed to live in the city limits of the village unless they worked full time for a white and lived in a small dwelling on his employer’s property. The vast majority were moved to areas outside the village limits in what were referred to as ‘n_____’ quarters. The blacks were used and abused as fruit pickers, maids, and other menial laborers. These groups of shacks did not disappear until desegregation took over and the Civil Rights Movement made many changes in the relationships between blacks and whites in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
    It was even more unusual that this authentic sympathy for Gator came in spite of the fact that P. J. was a highly esteemed and popular leader. Usually he was a fair minded man, who was open to political dialogue with both blacks and whites regarding any county business that affected them. It was quite obvious to everyone around that P. J. was not behaving as he usually did. He was revealing a rather nasty streak of racism.
    This streak was somewhat mitigated by the fact that P. J. “more or less apologized,” Brad commented. The writer is not sure what he meant by this ‘more or less’ qualification. She failed as an interviewer in not asking for a clarification. Brad did make another statement that suggested P. J. was quite morally developed.
    Brad said, “He admitted he was wrong.”
    If this quick witted descendent of scores of progressives—- abolitionists, feminists, socialists, and highly creative people——poets, historians, philosophers, and journalists, had not been present, Gator might have been badly hurt or even killed from a blow to the head with P. J.’s weapon/tool or his gun. On the other hand, had the struggle gone the other way, Gator might have been lynched without a trial or other due process by a group of rednecks had he so much as caused P. J. the most minor injury. Even worse the rednecks, who were acting illegally in their group murder, would never be prosecuted.
    Brad prevented a tragedy which would have reached across the entire community. It would have lowered the quality of life in the citrus village for years to come. P. J.’s mood would have been sad and mournful until death mercifully took him out. His conscience would have haunted him for the rest of his life, although his crime never would have been investigated, much less would he have been charged. However, the highly evolved young man was there and acted in congruence with his heritage and the values transmitted by his progressive, imaginative, and compassionate ancestors. He also grew up around spiritual evolved persons, i.e., persons guided by high moral principles. High morality should not be confused with the conventional morality accepted by a culture or society at a specific time. In some societies it is moral to be a fascist or other evil person. High moral principles refer to granting moral equality to all persons. It involves treating every person as an end and not as a mere means or tool to be used for other’s goals and purposes.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...