These 7 Manatee County schools are named after Black education pioneers, local legends
Several of Manatee County’s public schools are named after African-Americans who are well-known for their local contributions.
The schools are the namesakes of Black educators, entrepreneurs and role models who have been honored for their passion and dedication to local students and families. These men and women made contributions that influenced students both inside and beyond the classroom.
As part of Black History Month, we’re spotlighting the seven Black icons from the Bradenton area who have been recognized with one of the school district’s highest honors.
Carlos E. Haile
Carlos E. Haile Middle School, 9501 State Road 64 E., Bradenton, was named after the long-serving Black principal on Aug 17, 1997, and opened on Aug 25, 1997.
Haile moved to Manatee County from Georgia in 1930, where he taught math and was the assistant principal at Lincoln High in Bradenton, known today as Lincoln Memorial Middle School.
After five years of teaching, Haile would be promoted to principal.
He served asthe principal at Lincoln for 12 years while the school was located in Bradenton and then for 16 more years after the school merged with Memorial High School, another all-Black school in Palmetto, and formed Lincoln Memorial High School.
During Haile’s tenure at Lincoln, his greatest accomplishments were growth in the classroom and expansion of the tot school, according to a Manatee County Public Library System report titled “History of Black Education in Manatee County, Past and Present.”
“Students begin to excel in school and athletics,” the report said.
In 1963, Haile retired as principal.
Haile attended Clark University in Atlanta and received his master’s in education degree from Atlanta University.
Louise R. Johnson
Wakeland Elementary and Louise R. Johnson Middle School merged to become the Louise R. Johnson K–8 School of International Studies, 2121 26th Ave. E., Bradenton, in 2019. Technically, Johnson has had two schools named in her honor.
Johnson is the first child of G.D. Rogers and Minnie Rogers, a Black entrepreneur and civil rights activist.
Her father, G.D. Rogers, purchased the old Manatee County Court House building in 1930 to build the first formal Black school in Manatee County. He also has a local school named after him.
She was born on Eighth Avenue Drive West in Bradenton on Oct 25, 1910.
Johnson said during a 1987 interview with the Manatee County Historical Society, she left Bradenton and went to Daytona Beach to attend Bethune–Cookman University (BCU) at 14 years old. At the time, there was no high school for Black Students. In order to finish school, she had to leave Manatee County.
During her time at the university, Johnson said she built a close relationship with the school’s president and founder Mary McLeod Bethune.
“I was there when she was living and she was president; I was there, and I worked in her office,” Johnson said. “We traveled. I sang with the concert chorale. And when we traveled, my roommate, who was one year younger than I, and I always rode in her car rather than the bus with the other choir students because they were so young.”
From 1926 to 1932, Johnson attended BCU and would later graduate with a degree in education from Florida A&M University.
Johnson spent more than four decades in education, establishing several programs to assist Black students in the area, including the county’s first 4-H agricultural club for Black students.
During the 1940s, her husband, Grant Johnson, organized the first Voters League for Blacks in Manatee County.
In 1975, Johnson was named Florida’s Most Outstanding Woman by the governor and the Commission on the Status of Women. She was the first Black woman appointed to the Manatee County School Board in 1977, where she served for nearly 10 years.
James Tillman
James Tillman Elementary School, 1415 29th St. E., Palmetto, is named after the educator and principal. The school opened its doors on Jan. 31, 1966.
Tillman graduated from Florida A&M University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education before teaching in Manatee and Volusia counties for 28 years. Twenty of those were spent at Lincoln Academy and High School. Later, Tillman briefly served as Lincoln High School’s principal for two years, starting in 1964.
“Tillman was a man who stressed the need of basic education and the not-always-popular philosophy that if you want to advance in the world, you have to depend on yourself,” according to a report in Manatee County’s Historic Records Archive.
He died unexpectedly in 1965. His death was “quite tragic,” the report said.
During his tenure as principal, Tillman is credited with increasing the quality of instruction and the emphasis on students’ respect for themselves and the school.
Florine J. Abel
On the border of Manatee and Sarasota counties, Florine J. Abel Elementary School, 7100 Madonna Pl, Sarasota, is dedicated in honor of the long-serving teacher and principal. The school was named after her on Aug. 25, 1998.
In an interview with the Manatee County Historical Society in 1979, Abel detailed her 30-year career in the Manatee County School System, her membership on the Board of Trustees of Manatee Junior College — known today as State College of Florida — and other civic activities.
Abel taught fourth, fifth, and sixth grades in Georgia for 13 years before coming to Florida. Her first teaching job in Manatee County was at Memorial High School in Palmetto.
Later, Abel would become the principal of Bradenton Middle School for 14 years, where her PTA was the second largest in the state of Florida during that time.
She was a charter member and financial secretary of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. chapter in Bradenton, a charter member, former vice president, and secretary of the NAACP chapter in Manatee County, a recipient of service awards in 1971 and 1975, and a charter member of the Black Girl Scouts of America chapter in Manatee County.
Abel attended Albany State College, a Presbyterian college in Georgia.
Annie Lucy Williams
Annie Lucy Williams Elementary School, 3404 Fort Hamer Road, Parrish, was dedicated in honor of the long-serving school district teacher on Nov. 26, 2007.
Born in 1908, Williams worked in Manatee County as a teacher and educator from 1930 until 1975, primarily in the segregation era.
She moved to Bradenton in 1940 and taught at Palmetto Memorial High School, Bradenton Elementary School and Lincoln Middle School in Manatee County.
Williams taught for over 45 years before retiring in 1975. She is remembered as an active member of her church and in the community.
She was also a charter member of the Manatee Reading Council and Manatee County Rural Health Services.
G.D. Rogers
G.D. Rogers Garden Elementary School, 515 13th Ave. W., Bradenton, is named after Garfield Devoe Rogers, one of Bradenton’s first prominent Black leaders and entrepreneurs. The school opened on Aug. 23, 2009.
Rogers came to Manatee County in the early 1900s, where he worked as a tailor on Main Street in Bradenton.
Rogers opened the first Black-owned funeral home in Manatee County, Rogers Funeral Home. He was also the first Black mailman in Bradenton and helped organize the Central Life Insurance Company in Tampa, another Black-owned company.
Rogers purchased the third Manatee County Court House building and moved it to Second Street and 10th Avenue East in East Bradenton, founding Lincoln Academy in 1930.
Lincoln Academy was the first formal Black school in Manatee County. He raised the money to buy the courthouse by fundraising in the community.
“I went to school in storefronts, all kinds of places, churches.” Louise R. Johnson, Rogers’ daughter, said during a 1987 interview with the Manatee County Historical Society. “But finally, my dad bought the old courthouse.”
He was a trustee of the Black school board in the late 1930s and advocated for public education for all Black children at a time when Black children were only given three months of public education while white students were allowed eight.
Barbara A. Harvey
The most recent school to be named after a Black educator is Barbara A. Harvey Elementary School, 8610 115th Ave. E., Parrish. The school was dedicated to her in an opening ceremony on July 27, 2019.
Harvey taught at multiple schools in Manatee County from 1961 to 1976 before becoming an assistant principal at Palmetto Elementary School and principal at Jessie P. Miller Elementary in 1980.
In 1990, she became the school district’s director of elementary education. Harvey also served as a Manatee County School Board member from 1998 to 2014.
In a speech ahead of the school’s ribbon-cutting, Harvey stressed the importance of supporting local children and preparing them for the future.
“This is a Manatee County school that will, with passion, focus on families as we help make sure our children — these children — will have an opportunity to learn, to dream and to achieve as they make beautiful memories in this school,” Harvey said.
Harvey attended Bethune-Cookman University, where she met Dr. Martin Luther King as a student.
This story was originally published February 28, 2023 at 5:50 AM.
