Tampa, Florida - Imagine if there was only one day out of the year where you could take in the sights of the sounds of the Florida State Fair due to the color of your skin.
That's what life was like at one time in the Tampa Bay area due to Jim Crow laws that drew an invisible color line separating blacks from whites.
Negro Day in 1953 at Florida's State Fair was advertised as the day, "When the colored youth of Florida display their athletic and cultural achievements and fair officials present the award of achievement to outstanding Negro of the year."
Fred Hearns is a historian who grew up in Tampa in the 1950's. He has written a book that details what his early family life was like in "Getting It Done! Rebuilding Black America Brick by Brick."
Hearns said, "When you grow up in the Deep South and you grow up in an environment where segregation is the law of the land and it's something that you grow up with, you enjoy whatever freedoms you have. You know there's nothing more exciting to a child than a fair."
Hearns would know because he attended "Negro Day." He said, "It was just like going down on Central Avenue and you didn't have to worry about offending someone, or you can't sit here or you can't do this or you can't do that."
Central Avenue, Hearns said, was the lifeblood of the African-American community in Tampa for close to 100 years.
According to the historical marker, it was the principal business and entertainment district of Tampa's African-American community. Before it was destroyed, it contained schools, churches, lodges, a library, physicians, lawyers, dentists, grocery stores, barbershops, drug stores, insurance companies, newspapers, restaurants, a hotel, movie theaters, bars and nightclubs.
Celebrities such as Ray Charles, James Brown, B.B. King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Nate and Cannonball Adderly, all played on Central Avenue when they were just getting started.
Central Avenue has a special place in Fred Hearns heart. He worked for the City of Tampa for over 32 years in the Department of Community Affairs.
The mission of his department was to help to create and maintain good race relations, but one encounter changed the path of his life forever. Hearns said, "One day I said to a local official - that we really need to do something to honor the legacy of Central Avenue. The response I got from them was there's nothing there - in other words there's nothing to celebrate."
Hearns added, "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It made me angry and I guess I needed that to motivate me to prove that there's a lot the African-American community has contributed to the growth of this city.'"
Hearns started to do his research and it really paid off. He said, "Before I knew it I had over 200 amazing facts and that's how the bus tours started."
Hearns discovered facts such as where slaves are buried at Oaklawn Cemetery at East Harrison Street and North Jefferson Street in Tampa.
Click here for a photo gallery.
Hearns learned about bomb threats that were made before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech at Fort Homer Hesterly Armory, which is located at 522 N. Howard Avenue in Tampa.
Hearns also found out more about Clara Frye, a nurse, who opened the first hospital for Blacks. His mother Grace Agnes Tillman Clark worked at the facility.
Hearns said he loves giving the bus tours, pointing out the local landmarks and telling what happened there. He said, "It's an amazing three or four hour ride."
Hearns continues to inform the public about Tampa's rich history through his "Tampa Bay History Bus Tours". He added, "While we talk about African-American history, I talk about Afro-Cuban history. I talk about this history of the Cubans and the Italians and Sicilians - those people who came here with the Cubans to work in the cigar factories, because Don Vicente Martinez Ybor started the cigar factories here."
Hearns is motivated to make a difference. It is Hearns mission that he continues to this day and it was all sparked by that comment about Central Avenue. Hearns said, "Well it was a blessing and I thank God every day for that comment and for that challenge."
Fred Hearns is retired, but you would never know it by how busy he stays. Hearns continues the bus tours in the small amount of time he has between his graduate school studies on Africa and people of African descent in the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of South Florida.
If you'd like to contact Fred Hearns e-mail him at fhearns@netzero.com or you can call him at (813) 991-7981.
Tammie Fields, 10 News