Willie Charles Shaw on How Booker High Made Him Into a Community Leader Newtown Alive

The memory of Sarasota Mayor Willie
Charles Shaw is razor sharp.
 He was reared in “Black
Bottom,” a swampy land in Newtown near Maple, Palmadelia and Goodrich Avenues.
There were no streetlights or curbside mail delivery. Overtown had its own
neighborhood with the same name because of its rich black soil. Shaw can
quickly rattle off the locations of community landmarks, dirt paths, swimming
holes, citrus trees and bus routes; and the names of neighbors. Newtown’s dusty
roads were paved in 1968, but the first paved streets followed the route of the
city transit bus. His grandmother and family members owned land along Orange
Avenue and 31st Street. When there was a death in the neighborhood, Mrs.
Herring, Fannie McDugle, and Mrs. James formed an unofficial neighborhood
association with Mrs. Viola Sanders at the helm. The women collected food and
flowers for grieving families. Shaw’s mother sewed a heart or a ribbon on the
right sleeve of the bereaved.
 
The retired letter carrier attended
the Booker schools with teachers Barbara Wiggins, Mrs. McGreen, Prevell Carner
Barber, Aravia Bennet Johnson, Foster Paulk, Esther Dailey, Coach Dailey, Janie
Poe, and Turner Covington. “I would have to say that the entire learning
experience at Booker groomed me into a leader. We were taught that you always
had to be better, do better. You had to.”  
 
Shaw was among the African American
students who traveled on a bus across the Skyway Bridge to attend Gibbs Junior
College. He served in the U.S. Air Force, then became a letter carrier
following in the footsteps of Jerome Stephens, the first African American in
Sarasota hired by the postal service.