Tag Archives: segregation

An Unlikely Series of Events

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When Old-Timers gather at the Stuart Heritage Museum, I have been amused when several of the men address Jim Navitsky, former Superintendent of Martin County Schools, “Coach.”

Jim Navitsky, at my request, poses with two of his former Martin County football players, Bruce Stiller and Bruce Wells. They are looking at a 1977 yearbook.
Jim Navitsky listens to Bruce Stiller as he reminisces about a long-ago football play.

In 1964, Jim and Geri Navitsky, a teacher and a nurse with two children, decided to move from the frigid Pennsylvania to Florida. Geri’s parents, Alfred and Elizabeth Kaufman had retired to Rio where they purchased the Seahorse Lodge. This introduced the Navitskys to the wonders and warmth of Martin County. 

Superintendent of Schools, Tom Crook, offered Jim Navitsky a teaching job at Stuart Middle School. Since Jim’s passion was coaching, he accepted the job of physical education teacher which included coaching the middle school football team. He enjoyed working with the middle school principal, Joe McCoy, who had previously coached the Martin County High School basketball team.

After two years at Stuart Middle School, Jim was appointed head coach for Martin County High School. He was in heaven. Under his leadership, Martin County High School was Sun Coast Conference Champion and Jim was selected High School Football Coach of the Year.

Jim Navitsky was head coach of the Martin County Tigers in 1966-1967.

Martin County Schools were still segregated in 1964 with both Martin County High School, on Kanner Highway, and what was first called Carver Gardens Junior-Senior High, opening in the New Monrovia section of Port Salerno.

Murray Junior-Senior High School was built to serve Martin County’s Black students.
The Murray Junior-Senior High School Faculty pose before the school was integrated; FR: Venus Wallace, Unknown, Ernest Edwards, Cephas Gipson, Emma Washington, Elmira Rawls; MR: Charles Todd, James Robinson, James Wiggin, Kinley Austin, William Delancy, Quilly McHardy, Catherine Howell; BR: Eli Howell, Walter Oden, Ora Dell Turner and Lewis Rice.

When the new school for Blacks was built in Port Salerno in 1964, it was first called Carver Gardens Junior-Senior High School but the name was changed Murray Junior-Senior High, honoring a family of educators including two who had served as principal of the much beloved Stuart Training School.

Murray Junior-Senior High School was running pretty smoothly but the Martin County school system was faced with the nation’s deadline for full integration. The so called “freedom of choice” that made it possible for a few brave students to attend white schools was not fulfilling requirements. When Ernest Edward, principal of Black school resigned because of poor health, Walter Oden became interim principal.

THIS IS WHEN THE “UNLIKELY SERIES OF EVENTS” CAME INTO PLAY.

Rather than Walter Oden, Jim Navitsky was selected to be principal of Murray Junior-Senior High School in the fall of 1967. It was a way to begin full integration but Navitsky was reluctant to give up coaching.

The Murray students were not pleased. To demonstrate their displeasure, they flew the school’s American flag upside down and boycotted classes.

They even made up words to a song to be sung to the tune of “Mercy, Mercy” by Cannonball Adderley:

We want Mr. Oden for our principal!

We want Mr. Oden for our principal!

Not Navitsky, No, No!

Not Navitsky, No, No!

Not Navitsky, No

We want Oden.

For there is no man like Oden

Who will treat us like he should.

We want Oden!

A youngers was singing the ditty as he bagged groceries when Jim and his wife, Geri, were checking out of the local A & P. 

Jim asked Geri, “Do you suppose he knew who we were?

UNANTICIPATED VACANCY

Then, seemingly out of the blue, Tom Crook, Superintendent of Schools, resigned to take a Federal job and Jim Navitsky became his replacement.

THIS IS THE BACK STORY:

Although he had never attended a school board meeting, the few local Republicans, two of whom were on the school board, recommended Republican Governor Claude Kirk appoint Jim Navitsky Martin County Superintendent of School.s

Jim Navitsky had experience teaching in a large predominately Black high school in Philadelphia and was so new in town that he had no ties to the local Democrats who had ruled politics ever since the founding of Martin County. Things were changing. The Republicans thought Jim was savvy enough and had charisma that who make him a good candidate in future elections.

Jim Navitsky was appointed Superintendent of Martin County Schools in 1968 Florida Governor Claude Kirk.

The Republicans  were right. Jim Navitsky served as Superintendent of Schools for 21 years.

Jim Navitsky was an excellent superintendent who led the school system through integration and a teachers’ strike without serious disruptions. It was an important job but he smiles and says “Coaching the Martin County Tigers football team was the most fun.”  

The photographs of Coach Navitsky and Superintendent of Schools Navitsky were taken from the 1977 and 1978 Martin County Highschool yearbooks available at the Stuart Heritage Museum Stuart Heritage Museum

The photographs of the Murray Junior-Senior High School building and faculty are available on http://Martin Digital History

Insensitive

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I was recently going through my Black Heritage files and came across a program for the Annual Kiwanis Club Minstrel Show. To my chagrin, my father-in-law, Tom Thurlow, Sr., was the Interlocutor. This meant he was the straight man for four Kiwanians in blackface performing as dim-witted buffoons. Most of the men listed in the program were well known men in the community. My father-in-law had high standards of behavior but he, like the other Kiwanians, seemed to be blind to the insensitivity of black-face performances.

An early form of theater, Minstrel Shows, began in New York with white performers who blacken their faces and mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern Plantations.

I was familiar with the term Jim Crow of “Jim Crow Laws” but today it is easier to go deeper with the Internet.

After the years of Reconstruction following the Civil War ended in 1877, it did not take southerners long to figure out how to create a caste system by keeping the races separate. The laws to enforce the separation were called “Jim Crow.”

 I was not aware Jim Crow was a Minstrel Show character created by Thomas Dartmouth Rice.

In 1962 the Stuart High School was located on East Ocean Boulevard and in later years was the location of School Board meetings.
This particular Kiwanis Minstrel Show took place in 1962, the year Tom Thurlow. Jr/ and I were married.

Since I grew up in Gainesville, Florida, during the era of segregation and Jim Crow, I never had Black friends. It was not until I started writing books that I developed friendships with members of the Christie family, the family of Retha Rae Meues, and Harvey Poole of Belle Glade.  I still did not have a close personal friend.

Charlene Thompson, who grew up in Jensen’s “Tick Ridge,” contacted me because she knew my book, Jensen and Eden, included this neighborhood. She visited and we became close friends.

Charlene came for a visit almost every Sunday afternoon for about three years.

Charlene is a history buff like I am. She is an excellent researcher and genealogist. She knows me better than almost anyone else and having her as a friend has been wonderful.

When I asked her if she thought publishing a blog on the Kiwanis Club’s Minstrel Shows and the insensitivity of community leaders to the feelings of the Black community, she agreed the story would be an important reminder.

The Kiwanis Club of Stuart soon became aware of their insensitivity. My father-in-law received a letter of complaint from a white woman who said the club should be “ashamed.” Soon they realized the truth of the accusation.

Russell Holloway

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Pelican Hotel

To know the King sisters who grew up in the Pelican Hotel is to know about Russell Holloway.

Recently, I talked to Nancy Crawford, oldest of Bill and Nina King’s five daughters who told me “Russell raised us.”

I asked how she felt about Russell Holloway living in East Stuart during the years of segregation. Nancy said that was “just the way it was.”

Movie star Fabian Forte with his wife Kate Regan and Pelican Hotel chef Russell Holloway in 1969.

A picture of Russell Holloway surfaced among images collected by Alice and Greg Luckhardt. It showed Russell with Fabian Forte and his wife Katie Regan. It was taken in 1969 during the filming of the movie about the “Notorious Ashley Gang.” Scenes were taken in the Pelican Hotel and some of the cast and crew of the movie stayed there.

Actors – Karen Black and Fabian as Laura and John in 1969 movie (Luckhardt Collection)

When I reread a 1987 newspaper article about Russell Holloway by Sallie Hughes of the Miami Herald, his life story amazed me. The article was published when Russell was 67, after his Pelican Hotel days. Hughes photographed Russell cooking chicken in an East Stuart convenience store but at that time of his life he was also preparing huge dinners for the Macedonia Baptist Church in Gifford where he was pastor.

Pelican Hotel East Stuart Russell Holloway
Russell Holloway who, during his heyday, cooked in the Waldorf Astoria during the summer season, is shown here cooking in the Speedy Mart on Tarpon Avenue in 1987.

From the Hughes article we learn that Russell was born in Albany, Georgia and moved to Stuart with two of his sisters in 1939. His brother-in-law, George Mitchell, head chef at the Pelican Hotel, taught him to cook and hired him to work at the hotel. Before Russell perfected his cooking crafts he was drafted into the U.S. Army. In Massachusetts, he was preparing to go overseas when he met Gen. George Patton in a chow line. Patton, who knew a good deal about the quality of camp fare asked, “Who’s the cook?” Russell replied, “I’m the cook.”

Sgt. Russell Halloway went with Patton to victories in Morocco and Tunisia, through the siege of Sicily and into Nazi Germany.

When Sallie Hughes asked if he fought? Russell said, “Everybody fought. I have the scars to prove it.” Of course, he also cooked. Provisions were good. A Patton favorite was lamb stew that Patton insisted all the men have when he did.

The fighting cook returned to Stuart and became the Pelican’s top chef.

I know my friend Kay King Norris still uses some of Russell Holloway’s “cooking tricks.”