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Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

Suwannee County Sheriff Al Williams, or read the book, “The American
Siberia” , by J. C. Powell.

EARLY BLACK POLITICIANS

With Black History month in full swing, this is a good tim e to honor those
first local black citizens who were willing to run for public office, often
under difficult conditions, and thereby paved the way for all those who
came after them.

The first four men to run, all for City Council and all unsuccessfully, were
Oliver Bradley, tinsm ith; Henry Harrison, salvage business; McKinley
Jeffers, Sr., County Agent; and Leonard O’Neal, a body repair man.

Alyce Caesar, Funeral Home Director, was the first woman to run and she
lost in a race for School Board.

Winning was virtually impossible for these black citizens because all voting
was city-wide and the majority of the city was white. When we began
precinct voting, we got our first black city councilman, Sam Thompson.

By the way, Leonard O’Neal came the closest to winning under the city­
wide voting system -he lost by just 131 votes.

SHAYNE AND DEMETRIC

CHS graduates Shayne Edge and Demetric Jackson were both members of
UF’s 1996 national championship football team. Both graduated and
returned to Columbia County to teach, and both have become excellent
teachers.

Demetric was recently named the new Head Football Coach at Fort White
High School, and Shayne was just named “Teacher of the Year” at the
Challenge Learning Center. We’re lucky to have both of them in our
school system.

REMEMBERING JOE FIELDS

The late Joe Fields came to this football-crazy town and became famous
as a basketball coach.

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