TAMPA, Fla. — Over the next month, we will be highlighting the impact African Americans have had on the Tampa Bay area. You’ll hear about historical Black figures and places that helped to make the area what it is today.
Fred Hearns, a historian with the Tampa History Center, highlights Blanche Armwood.
“Blanche Armwood was born in Tampa in the area that we knew as the Scrub near Central Avenue,” said Hearns.
Her family moved to the Seffner area when she was 12 years old.
“The Armwoods owned many, many acres of land in Seffner. In fact, today, we have Armwood High School in Seffner named for Blanche Armwood,” continued Hearns.
Hearns said Armwood completed high school by the age of 12.
“She went to Spellman College in Atlanta, Georgia, graduated from Spellman as an undergraduate at the age of 16,” said Hearns.
After graduating, Armwood returned to Tampa and began teaching at the Harlem Academy school.
“Later on, she became the first executive secretary of the Tampa Urban League,” said Hearns. That same year, in 1922, the Hillsborough County School Board hired her as the supervisor of Negro education. Years later, she got her law degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
During a speaking tour, Armwood became ill and died in Massachusetts in 1939. She’s buried in Ybor City.
