TAMPA, Fla. — Inside the book "African Americans of Tampa," 128 pages of pictures show pioneering history makers from Tampa.
“When I find a picture, I want to know who is in it,” said author Eursla Knox Odom.
She spoke to the fifth graders of Lomax Elementary Magnet School about her book and many different local history makers with ties to their school.
“I was told that they were excited about the fact that their school was in my book,” she said.
One of the figures mentioned in her book is the mother of Tampa’s Black History Curator, Fred Hearns. There’s also Mrs. Doris Ross Reddick, Tampa’s first Black woman elected to the school board. That tidbit shocked both students and staff.
“As an educator in Hillsborough County Schools for 31 years, I know who Doris Ross Reddick is,” Principal Sarah Jacobsen Capps said. “But, to know that she was here as a student, that’s just such a legacy. For me it just made it even more intense and how important this job is, and maintaining that connection.”
There are also pictures of the school's 1937 May Day celebration, which caught the eye of students and assistant principal Marcia Richardson. They notice some elements that are still at the school today.
“The trees outside,” Richardson said. “We have these beautiful trees, and I’m like, that’s still there. I was able to make certain connections. This was remarkable.”
Odom said the two takeaways she hopes students leave with are the importance of having written and photographic records of history and that they can grow up to accomplish anything they want, like the former Lomax students in her book.
“It’s all possible for every last one of them here, and I got to tell them that,” she said. “That was really cool.”
