Kelley Firm Newsletter - January

2020JANUARY KELLEY FIRM NEWSLETTER HEADSTONES IN A LAKE? ON FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN STRANGERS BECOME FAMILY AN ODESSA FARM, SIGNS OF A PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF FOR AIR FORCE VETERAN’S FORGOTTEN BLACK CEMETERY FUNERAL ARKANSAS DIES AT 88 PAGE 15 PAGE 4 PAGE 10

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1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) INDEX 04 HEADSTONES IN A LAKE? ON 10 FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN AN ODESSA FARM, SIGNS OF A PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF FORGOTTEN BLACK CEMETERY ARKANSAS DIES AT 88 06 GARTH REEVESCALLED A 12 THIS DISCOVERY MIGHT HOLD “FREEDOM FIGHTER OF ALL THE SECRETS TO THE DEADLIEST AFRICAN AMERICAN PEOPLE” AT RACIST MASSACRE IN U.S. MIAMI FUNERAL 15 STRANGERS BECOME FAMILY 09 DUKE CURTIS, FORMER FOR AIR FORCE VETERAN’S PRESIDENT OF HAMLAR-CURTIS FUNERAL FUNERAL HOME, DIES AT 63 3

KELLEY FIRM NEWSLETTER HEADSTONES IN A LAKE? ON Keystone Park Memorial AN ODESSA FARM, SIGNS OF A Cemetery was established FORGOTTEN BLACK CEMETERY. by a freed slave in the early 1900s. By the mid-1900s, it had disappeared. 4

1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) There’s no sign of a cemetery on Carolyn And somewhere on Wilson’s 130-acre Bay Tree Citrus Park Colored School. Curtiss Wilson and her Wilson’s land. Just green grass, a barn and Farm it’s likely that 75 or more people from brother Mordecai Walker attended. more than a dozen racehorses put out to pioneering black families in Odessa were buried pasture. during the first half of the 20th century. The little red schoolhouse opened in 1925 and, in a reversal of roles, it was used by Mt. Pleasant AME Wilson has heard there are headstones here, One East Tampa woman who used to live nearby for services. In 1947, a separate church was built though, piled up at the bottom of a pond that remembers it. Curtiss Wilson, 91, no relation to the on the property. college fraternity members called “Suicide Lake,” property owner, said her father tried in vain to save back in the days when they would sneak in for a the burial ground by sprucing it up after new white The community continued burying its dead at the night-time dive as a rite of initiation. landowners said it could no longer be used as a cemetery Lewis had established nearby. cemetery. Walker, 95, who now lives in St. Petersburg, recalled And a report on Tampa cemeteries issued in 1941 walking from the school and cutting through the by the federal Works Progress Administration cemetery to reach the lake and pick flowers for describes a “Keystone Memorial Park (Colored) girls. Cemetery,” 7.5 miles south on Gunn Highway from the Odessa post office and two-tenths of a mile to Curtiss Wilson, his sister, said no sign identified the the left down Woods Road. burial ground but it was known as the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. Some of the grave markers were The post office building and Woods Road are gone. temporary and washed away in the rain, others The headstones disappeared. were granite headstones. As for the bodies, “Nobody moved anybody,” Many graves were covered in poured concrete Curtiss Wilson said. “They are still there.” right after the funeral, Wilson and Walker said. They estimate there were 50 to 75 marked graves and Now, nearly 70 years later, emboldened by renewed more that were not marked. interest across the Tampa Bay area in forgotten African-American cemeteries, Curtiss Wilson is The next owner was church member David calling on Carolyn Wilson to have archaeologists Allen, according to property records filed at the survey her land for graves. Hillsborough County Clerk’s Office, though it is unclear when he bought it. In 1924, Allen sold the The two women have never talked about the land to William Twitt, the county tax assessor, cemetery. But informed by the Tampa Bay Times according to property records. of the request, Carolyn Wilson said, “I am not going to fight this. I want to know.” Twitt was white and had no connection with the church, Walker said, but he allowed the black A developer and the namesake of an art gallery community to continue using the property as a at the University of South Florida, Carolyn Wilson cemetery. purchased the Odessa property at 9201 Gunn Hwy. in 1981. She later heard there might have been a Twitt sold the property to Ernestine Woodard in burial ground somewhere on the land. 1941, according to property records. Her brother Robert Woodard Sr., who would become mayor of She reached out to a small church that once Temple Terrace, later became a partner. operated the cemetery, Mt. Pleasant AME Church in Odessa, but never heard back, she said. The Times placed calls to Woodard’s son, Robert Woodard Jr. of Land O’ Lakes, but his wife, Angela Earlier this year, she figured someone would Woodard, said he had nothing to say because the contact her because of the widespread attention events played out before he was born. that followed the discovery by the Times of forgotten Zion Cemetery, believed to be Tampa’s Asked whether the cemetery disappeared while it first African-American burial ground. Buildings was owned by her father-in-law, Angela Woodard were erected atop Zion even though as many as said, “That is not something he would have done. 800 graves are still there and plans are underway My father-in-law was a very respected man. to turn the property into a memorial. Everybody knew him as Mr. Temple Terrace and as a very giving man.” The Odessa land’s previous owners, the Woodard family, ran a monument company, so Carolyn Curiously, the 1941 sales deed said the land “shall Wilson’s story about the headstones could not be used ... for the burial of bodies of domestic describe company debris tossed into the lake. But animals or human beings.” state records indicate the company operated out of Jacksonville. Still, the cemetery remained intact through the early-1950s, said Mattie Ford, 77, who attends Mt. “If bodies are there,” Carolyn Wilson said, “it is Pleasant AME and lives nearby. Ford had relatives sacred.” buried in Keystone, including homesteader Lewis, her great-grandfather. The story of the Keystone cemetery begins in the 1860s when Tony Lewis — freed from slavery by Brother and sister Walker and Wilson had moved the Emancipation Proclamation — homesteaded away by the time the cemetery disappeared. Their the property, according to a history provided by the father told them he had planted flowers and pulled Mt. Pleasant AME Church. weeds there, hoping to keep the burial ground presentable and buy more time. In the early 1900s, Lewis established the cemetery and built a church that doubled as a school for But at some point after that, the cemetery African-Africans living in the rural area during the disappeared from view. Walker and Wilson didn’t era of segregation. Charlie Walker, Curtiss Wilson’s know why or how. All they knew was what they father, was a minister with the church. The church were told: No one could afford to move the caskets, building was struck by lightning, caught fire and so the bodies remained. burned around 1920. Parishioner Barbara Allen donated neighboring property at 9703 Gunn Hwy. “It sat there for so long,” Curtiss Wilson said. “Mr. for a new school. Tony was dead. All the older people were dead and nobody did anything about it.” Walker petitioned the Hillsborough County School Board for supplies to build what became the 5

KELLEY FIRM NEWSLETTER GARTH REEVES called a “freedom fighter of all African American People” at Miami Funeral In person, Garth C. Reeves Sr., the publisher “I grew up in a home with no father,” he on Sept. 1, 1923. emeritus of The Miami Times, would often continued. Hardemon said that as a little preface his conversations with the words, boy he had no male role model to look Reeves started his career when he was “Let me tell you a little story.” toward — until he met Garth Reeves Sr. still in high school at Miami’s Booker T. Washington, and he continued working to At his three-hour funeral service Friday Reeves, Hardemon said, gave him and his retirement in 1994. After stepping down, morning at the Historic Saint Agnes other “nappy-haired kids” in the community, he continued as an activist, board member Episcopal Church in Miami’s Overtown “the opportunity to look up to him and say, of various institutions, businessman and neighborhood, hundreds of friends, ‘There goes a man.’ mentor. community leaders, colleagues and elected officials gathered to tell heartfelt stories T. Willard Fair, president and chief executive Reeves’ energy in running the landmark little and big about the longtime leader in officer of the Urban League of Greater black-owned paper would impact the lives Miami’s black community. Miami, called Reeves an “unforgettable of countless families in South Florida. He’d force” and said “the most important thing I found his life’s calling — to serve as a voice About 500 people, including Larry Robinson, learned from him was the courage to stay for the black community. president of Reeves’ alma mater, Florida committed.” A&M University, filed by his open casket He passed that legacy on to his kin. near the entrance. They came to share Benjamin Chavis, president and chief remembrances and to honor a civic icon executive officer of the National Newspaper Reeves kept The Miami Times in the family who stood tall as a voice for the aspirations Publishers Association, also eulogized as it evolved into its current digital edition. of African Americans in Miami for nearly a Reeves’ strength, “a freedom fighter of all He died two months after his daughter, century. African-American people,” Chavis said. Rachel, passed. His late son Garth Jr. also held power at the paper but died of colon Standing near Reeves for one last time, his He then asked all the publishers who came cancer at age 30 in 1982. Reeves’ grandson, cousin Gayle Sweeting said something that to the service to stand. They came from Garth Basil, Rachel’s son, now runs The was reflected in the broad mix of people Texas. From St. Louis and Fort Lauderdale. Miami Times. at his final services: “He was adored by From New York to Chicago. everyone in the community. They loved him. A legacy and an era is gone.” “There are 225 African-American newspapers published today and that’s Born in Miami, Hardemon grew up in because of his leadership,” Chavis said. the James E. Scott Public Housing Development in Liberty City. Reeves was an indefatigable icon who started on his leadership path quite young. “I’m the only Negro sitting on Miami’s City Commission and I say it like that because Reeves, born in Nassau, was 4 months old you have to understand that Garth Reeves when he moved to Miami’s Overtown and reminded me that you should always know Liberty City neighborhoods with his family. who you are,” Hardemon said during the He held every position at the paper his service. father, Henry E.S. Reeves, a master printer from the Bahamas, had founded in Miami 6

1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) Garth C. Reeves Sr., editor emeritus of The Miami Times, and daughter Rachel Reeves, editor, celebrate the 75th anniversary of their newspaper in this 1998 Herald file photo. 7

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1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) DUKE CURTIS, FORMER PRESIDENT OF HAMLAR- CURTIS FUNERAL HOME, DIES AT 63 Harry Clarke “Duke” Curtis started his career washing cars father was unavailable. at the family business: the Hamlar-Curtis Funeral Home & Crematory. Duke’s father, Harry Cecil Curtis founded Hamlar-Curtis Funeral Home with Lawrence Harrison Hamlar in 1952. “My brother started washing cars when he was a teenager The funeral home, located on Moorman Avenue, has and he never left,” his sister Cecil Maria Curtis Otey said. undergone multiple expansions over the years. “My daddy was a clean car man and he taught his son to take care of those vehicles.” Duke worked at the funeral home for more than 35 years and served as its president for 16 years. But his sister What started as a simple job eventually developed into a said he wasn’t always interested in getting into the family passion for work at the funeral home. Duke Curtis took business. Instead, he wanted to move to California to over his father’s business as president in 2003 until he pursue music or electronics. Eventually, he opted to create retired this year. His job at the funeral home, and service a legacy at Hamlar-Curtis, she said. to the community, introduced him to hundreds of people in the Roanoke Valley and established him as a figure of the His work around the Roanoke Valley earned him the African American community. Roanoke NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year. His wife Pat and his daughter attended the ceremony. Curtis died At the age of 63 after battling cancer for 13 years. “Everybody loved the duke,” Otey said. “He and his wife Pat were to me an exemplary image for all young and old Otey said the family considered him their “oak tree” because people as to what a complete family life is all about. They of his strength and determination. loved each other deeply and they were always there for whatever the children needed.” “He went through so many battles with his illness,” Otey said. “But he was strong just like an oak tree. He kept In 2013, Duke’s friends threw him a celebration to honor pulling through.” his achievements. A Roanoke Times article about the event said his friends described Duke as “genuine and passionate”, Named after his late grandfather, Curtis grew up with three but also humble whenever he received recognition. sisters and was the only son and grandson in the family. His nickname, Duke, was meant to signify royalty, Otey said. “I see others get honored — preachers and important people,” he said in the article. “I don’t think I deserve it. “He was the apple of my parent’s eye,” she said. “From the There was probably a time when I was younger that I day he was born to the day he passed, he was ‘the duke’.” thought I was deserving of that and more but God has placed me in a situation to do my life dream — being helpful Curtis grew up in Roanoke and attended William Fleming to people. I’m so thankful.” High School. His late mother, businesswoman Marilyn Curtis, served on the Roanoke School Board and worked in many community and business organizations. She got her son involved in church and community activities, including being the preacher in a Tom Thumb wedding. He also escorted her to community and business affairs when his 9

KELLEY FIRM NEWSLETTER FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS DIES AT 88 University Professor emeritus Gordon Morgan, ment for the Humanities Teaching Fellowship and a the first African American professor to be hired Ford Foundation Fellowship. by the University of Arkansas, passed away Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019. He was 88. Gordon Morgan Hall, a residence hall in the Northwest Quad, was named in his honor earlier this year, along Morgan, hired in 1969 as an assistant professor in the with the adjacent Margaret Clark Hall. Department of Sociology, earned promotions to as- sociate professor, full professor and then the rank of Gordon and Clark are the first two African American University Professor during his more than 40 years on professors at the U of A and, combined, served 72 campus. He conducted research on the topics of race years on campus. and education and was a key mentor to thousands of students. Morgan also helped African American stu- Dan Ferritor, chancellor emeritus, made remarks dents organize governing bodies for the first time and about Morgan while at the dedication of the residence assisted in the integration of student residence halls. hall, explaining how Morgan valued the relationships he had with his students. “I was saddened to hear of the passing of Dr. Gordon Morgan,” Chancellor Joe Steinmetz said. “He was well “It’s hard to sum up what Gordon means to students,” known as one of the first African American professors Ferritor said. “By working every day in every way to at the University of Arkansas and as a sociologist help students reach their full potential, Morgan was a who chronicled the first 40 years of campus life after rock in many students’ lives. Even at 80 years of age, desegregation began at the university in 1948, but his Morgan ‘was a cool dude.’” true legacy was his decades of nurturing, mentoring and teaching countless students. While a small thing, Morgan was from Mayflower in Faulkner County and we are grateful that we were able to recognize him earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Arkan- earlier this year by naming a student residence hall in sas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College, now his honor.” known as the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. After college, he enlisted in the Army and served during the Morgan officially retired and took emeritus status in Korean War. 2012 but continued to teach and write. One of his best known works is a book that he wrote with his wife, He earned a Master of Arts in sociology from the U Izola Preston, titled The Edge of Campus: A Journal of A and went on to earn a doctorate at Washington of the Black Experience at the University of Arkansas. State University and teach at Lincoln University before The book examined the first 40 years of campus life joining the U of A faculty. He was a member of the after desegregation began at the U of A. Black Alumni Association and the Arkansas Alumni Association. He and his wife also established the Gordon Morgan Family Scholarship for minority students at the He is survived by his wife, Izola Morgan; his three university. children, Marsha, Brian and Marian; two grandchildren; In 2006, Morgan received the J. William Fulbright Dis- one great-grandson; and two sisters, Geraldine Smith tinguished Alumni Award, one of many distinguished and Bobby Dewberry (Lenard). honors throughout his career. He was also a recipient of the Silas Hunt Legacy Award, a National Endow- 10

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KELLEY FIRM NEWSLETTER THIS DISCOVERY MIGHT HOLD THE SECRETS TO THE DEADLIEST RACIST MASSACRE IN U.S. HISTORY The official death toll was just 36, but everyone must have known that was a lie. The 1921 attack on Tulsa’s Green- wood neighborhood—a thriving, independent, prosperous African-American community known as Black Wall Street— leveled 35 city blocks and destroyed at least 1,200 homes and businesses, reducing many of them to little more than ashes. At least 800 people went to the hospital, and some 6,000 Black citizens were jailed for as long as eight days. It is commonly referred to today as a massacre—or even, bor- rowing a better-fitting word from another context, a pogrom. Yet after the carnage was over, the official number of dead, according to the Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics, was said to be precisely three dozen. It has been obvious for years that that number was likely deliberately inaccurate, a fig leaf to hide the shame of what occurred. The dead probably numbered in the hundreds, according to more recent estimates. And at last, archaeolog- ical researchers believe they may have uncovered the mass grave where some of those dead now lie. In a report released this week, researchers at the Oklahoma Archaeological Sur- vey announced that they have located two large “anomalies” at Oaklawn Cemetery, Tulsa’s oldest graveyard, that are both “consistent with a common grave.” The Tulsa massacre, also referred to as the “Tulsa Race Riot,” took place on May 31, when a white mob descended on Greenwood, using the thin pretext of a black teenager’s supposed assault of a white woman. (It was an accusation that was often used to justify violence against Black people; Paul Gardullo, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, has said it was “a formula that resulted in untold numbers of lynchings across the nation.”) In this instance, a 19-year-old shoeshiner named Dick Rowland was accused of raping a white 17-year-old elevator operator named Sarah Page. After Rowland was arrested, a crowd of white men appeared at the jail, intent on gaining entry, dragging him out, and lynching him. Soon after, a number of black citizens, several of them World War I veter- ans, arrived to volunteer to guard the prisoner. Shots were exchanged; 12 people are said to have been killed, 10 white and two black. That deadly incident was used as a wholesale excuse to destroy Greenwood: The fast-growing mob set fires, threw bombs and shot fleeing citizens. Private planes were also used to drop incendiary bombs on people, businesses, libraries, and at least one church, according to a 2001 report from a state commission and the eyewitness accounts of survivors.The violence stretched into the next day. One young survivor, then six-year-old Olivia Hooker, told NPR last year that she remembers her mother hiding her and her siblings beneath a dining room table as a group of white men waving torches invaded their home; Hooker said she watched as they used an axe to destroy her sister Irene’s cherished piano. Several disturbing mysteries lingered after the massacre 12

1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) was over. It’s never been clear, for term that often indicates that bodies instance, who owned all of the private were interred without coffins. Burials planes used to firebomb Greenwood, in coffins, Regnier says, are picked up as the 2001 report lays out. (It also more strongly by radar technology. notes that some white citizens denied that the planes had been used for fire- “If an individual was buried without bombing at all.) But the most chilling a coffin, which was likely the case question has always been where the with many of the massacre victims, many hundreds of unaccounted-for 100 years of natural decomposition dead were buried. means that the only target for the radar are the bones that remain,” she The report on the new potential mass said. “A human skeleton has a much grave site was authored by Amanda L. lower reflectivity than coffins or vaults Regnier, the director of the Oklahoma and won’t show up as strongly in the Archeological Survey at the University profiles. We know the funeral homes in of Oklahoma, and Scott Hammerstedt, Tulsa ran out of coffins after the race a senior researcher there. Using a massacre, so victims may have been variety of scientific techniques, includ- buried without coffins.” ing ground-penetrating radar (GPR), magnetic gradiometry, and electrical The next phase will also focus on resistivity, they found two spots where what will happen to any human those killed by the massacre might remains that are uncovered, Regnier be interred en masse. Regnier and said. “Before any subsurface test- Hammerstedt specialize in pre-contact ing proceeds, there will be a written Native American archaeology, but feasibility plan provided to the Public their knowledge using geophysical Oversight Committee that details how equipment, Regnier said, means the forensic anthropology team plans they’re often asked to assist with other to conduct testing, excavations, and archaeological projects, as well as, as analysis and, most importantly, a set in she puts it, contacted by “law enforce- stone plan in place to rebury all of the ment and a variety of folks associated individuals who are disinterred.” NBC with cemeteries in various ways.” also reported that the city is working to get permission to do a similar scan at But nothing like this. “We have suc- Booker T. Washington Cemetery, which cessfully located mass burials on prior is privately owned, and which the projects,” Regnier told VICE, “but it is research team believes could house safe to say this project is by far the another possible burial site. most important and impactful work I have done in my career.” Regnier’s team has been searching the city’s cemeteries for mass graves “I’m as confident as I can be in the since 2018, but the project got more results that this is a very big candidate attention recently with the vivid depic- with something associated with the tion of the massacre featured in the massacre,” Hammerstedt said at a first episode of the recently-concluded public hearing on Monday, according HBO series Watchmen. to a report from NBC. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, meanwhile, emphasized on “I have to hope that Watchmen has Twitter that there was still “much work certainly raised the public profile of the to be done to determine if this is a investigation,” Regnier says, “And the mass grave from the 1921 Tulsa Race race massacre in general … Most peo- Massacre.” ple have a general idea that it occurred, but don’t know the full history.” Regnier and Hammerstedt’s report found that besides the areas that ap- pear to be mass graves, Oaklawn also has a number of unmarked graves and what they call “ephemeral graves,” a 13

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1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) STRANGERS BECOME FAMILY FOR AIR FORCE VETERAN’S FUNERAL Leslie Barnes died without any family to pay family. “Everybody she met loved her … She always their respects. had a big smile,” he said. “And she loved “I’ll probably be like her,” she said. seafood and loved hot sauce. But the chapel full of people who celebrated Barnes’ life Thursday disagreed with that The Rev. James Lewis read a long list of Patterson echoed the comments Lewis made idea, honoring her years of service in the Air accomplishments Barnes achieved in her about Barnes, adding she loved to jog before Force and the joy she gave to others at the more than 26 years of service. At the time health problems prevented that. assisted-living facility she called home for the she entered the service, Lewis said, 5 percent last years of her life. of the branch was composed of women Patterson, who cared for Barnes for about and just 3 percent were African American. three years, stood at the end of the service The service for Barnes was arranged by Barnes, as an African American woman, was and thanked everyone for attending. the staff at Nicholson Funeral Home after a trendsetter, he said. learning she died last month and did not “I am thankful for everybody in this place,” have any family members. In choosing the scripture to read at Barnes’ she said. “I’m so very grateful for everyone service, Lewis said I Corinthians was in this place that God brought here today. ... “She gave her all to the Air Force,” Bill Brater appropriate. The Scripture addresses the I want to thank y’all for coming out here for of Nicholson Funeral Home said. many parts of the body working as one. “All Miss Leslie.” of you in here are one body for one person,” Her caregiver, Beverly Patterson, contacted he said. Outside, she said, she was thrilled with Nicholson earlier this year to pre-arrange the number of people who came to honor Barnes’ cremation, and the funeral home Lewis said the Scripture also talks about Barnes. “I know she would be too,” she said. carried that out — but wanted to do more. everyone having a purpose and that purpose for Barnes was the Air Force. As the service concluded, Brater passed a So it put out the call to veterans groups and folded American flag and the urn containing the community at large to pay their respects “She gave of herself to the United States of Barnes’ ashes to two of the many veterans to Barnes on Thursday, and turn out they did. America for 26 years of her life,” he said. who filled the front pews to pay their The chapel at Nicholson Funeral Home was respects to Barnes. As a bagpiper played filled to near capacity as complete strangers The packed house at Nicholson Funeral “Amazing Grace,” the urn was carried to the became family for Barnes. Home Thursday, he said, is a testament to hearse, and the Patriot Guard revved up their the life that Barnes lived. motorcycles to escort her to the national Peggy Solomon, an Air Force master sergeant cemetery in Salisbury. like Barnes, said she identifies with Barnes in Lewis also provided some insight into the life many ways. Both went into the Air Force in of the woman few in the crowd knew but the late 1970s, when women there were a that all felt compelled to honor. rarity and, like Barnes, she doesn’t have any 15

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