M. Athalie Range facts for kids
M. Athalie Range (born Mary Athalie Wilkinson; November 7, 1915 – November 14, 2006) was an important Bahamian American civil rights activist and politician. She made history as the first African-American person to serve on the Miami, Florida City Commission. She was also the first African-American since the Reconstruction era, and the first woman, to lead a state agency in Florida, the Department of Community Affairs.
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Who Was M. Athalie Range?
Mary Athalie Wilkinson was born in Key West, Florida on November 7, 1915. Her grandparents had all moved to Florida from the Bahamas. When Athalie was about five or six years old, her family moved to Miami.
Athalie Wilkinson went to Booker T. Washington High School in Overtown, Miami. This school was only for African-American students at the time. In 1937, she married Oscar Lee Range. They had four children: Myrna, Patrick, Oscar, and Gary. During these years, the Range family lived in the Liberty Square Housing Project. During World War II, Athalie Range worked cleaning trash from railroad cars.
In 1953, Oscar Range became a certified funeral director and opened the Range Funeral Home in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami. Sadly, Oscar Range died suddenly in 1960. Athalie Range then went to school at the New England Institute of Anatomy and Embalming. She earned her own funeral director certification so she could keep the family business running. The Range Funeral Homes grew to three locations, and Athalie Range continued to work there for the rest of her life.
How Did Athalie Range Improve Schools?
In 1948, Athalie Range became the President of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) at her children's school, Liberty City Elementary. This school had 1200 students but only portable classrooms, with no permanent buildings. There were only about twelve toilets for all the boys and girls. The only drinking fountains were outside, and the water was often too hot to drink. The school grounds had no trees or grass, and there was no lunchroom. Liberty City Elementary was one of the few schools in the school district that held two half-day sessions for students.
Range led 125 African-American parents from the school to a school board meeting. They wanted to demand improvements for their school. The board delayed the meeting for an hour, but then they listened to Athalie Range speak. To her surprise, the board agreed to make changes. They ordered hot meals to be sent from a nearby white school to Liberty City Elementary. They also moved another portable building to the school to serve the hot lunches. Most importantly, they began building a new, permanent school building. This was the first school for African-Americans built in the district in twenty-one years. Athalie Range continued to be the President of school and county-wide PTAs for sixteen years.
Serving on the City Commission
In 1965, Alice Wainwright, who was the first woman on the Miami City Commission, decided not to run for re-election. Athalie Range decided to run for the open seat. She was the first African-American person to run for the City Commission. She won the most votes in the first election, but not a majority.
In the next election, called a runoff, Range's opponent, a white man named Irwin Christie, used a sound truck in white neighborhoods. The day before the election, it broadcast a message saying that if white people did not vote, a black woman would be making laws for them. Athalie Range later said, "His campaign decided to play the race card, which took me out of contention." Many black voters had been allowed time off work to vote in the first election, but not for the runoff. Range lost the runoff, getting about 17,000 votes, while Christie received about 18,000. Christie later apologized to Range for his campaign, and she accepted his apology.
In 1966, one of the city commissioners resigned. Miami Mayor Robert King High appointed Athalie Range to fill the rest of that commissioner's term. In 1967 and again in 1969, Athalie Range was re-elected to the City Commission.
While on the commission, Range worked to improve garbage collection in black neighborhoods. These areas sometimes went three weeks between pickups, while white neighborhoods had pickups twice a week. After a vote on her plan to make garbage service equal was delayed twice, Range had her neighbors bring bags of garbage to a commission meeting and dump them on the commissioners' desks. After that, the plan was passed! She also pushed for stronger gun control laws, but she only got some of what she wanted. After a fire caused by a kerosene heater killed eleven people in a house in a black neighborhood, Range led an effort to ban such heaters in Miami.
Range also spoke with City Manager Melvin Reese about having an African-American police officer assigned to motorcycle patrol. When Reese was against it, Range made a deal with Mayor High. She would vote to buy land for the proposed Alice Wainwright Park if an African-American motorcycle patrolman was hired. The first African-American motorcycle patrolman in Miami was Robert Ingraham. He later became Chief of Police and then Mayor of Opa-locka, Florida.
When asked about her achievements in office, Range said, "There were so many unfair things in those days that you could just reach out and pick something and change it."
What Were Her Later Achievements?
In 1971, the new Florida Governor Reubin Askew appointed Athalie Range as Secretary of the Department of Community Affairs. She became the first African-American person since Reconstruction and the first woman ever to lead a state agency in Florida. As Secretary, she managed a department with 200 employees and a budget of US$5.2 million each year. She stayed in this position until 1973.
In 1974, Athalie Range became the first honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in Florida. This historic African-American sorority welcomed her with the help of its Gamma Zeta Omega Chapter.
Athalie Range was one of the first African-Americans in Florida to support Jimmy Carter when he ran for President. Range introduced Carter to African-American groups in Florida before he even announced he was running. President Carter later appointed Range to serve for two years on the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) governing board. In just over thirty years, she had gone from cleaning railroad cars to helping run AMTRAK!
In 1989, Athalie Range was again appointed to fill an open spot on the Miami City Commission. Athalie Range was honored by being inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2004, she was still helping run the family funeral homes. She also served as the founding Chairman of the Virginia Key Beach Park Task Force, which later became the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust. This group worked to save Virginia Key Beach Park, which re-opened in 2008 as Historic Virginia Key Beach Park. It was once the only public beach in Dade County open to African-Americans.
Athalie Range Park and the Athalie Range Olympic Swimming Complex are named after her. There is also a part of Miami's Biscayne Boulevard named in her honor. M. Athalie Range passed away on November 14, 2006, in Miami, at the age of 91.
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See also
In Spanish: M. Athalie Range para niños
