Bradenton resident's work honored - Black Golf Hall of Fame

Photo: G.D. Rogers Sr. turned Central Life Insurance Co., which sold policies to black people during the days of segregation, into a million-dollar business after taking over in 1933. [photo provided by Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library]

Black Golf Hall of Fame to induct land that G.D. Rogers donated to Tampa.

TAMPA, FL — Rogers Park has come a long way from the days when Tampa's black community met there to spread a blanket on the soft, billowing hills and have a quiet lunch outdoors in the shade of a fragrant long-leaf pine tree.

G.D. Rogers of Bradenton, who had business interests in Tampa, contributed the land for the segregated park. Rogers died before the civil rights movement took off. During the first half of the 20th century, the activist businessman started numerous projects on behalf of black people -- including a Bradenton school and a beachfront resort near Daytona Beach.

When local black golfers began chipping around the vast green open spaces at Rogers Park, they sealed the fate of the tract -- north of Sligh Avenue at the end of 30th Street. The Rogers Park Golf Club opened in 1952.

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Let's be honest here, as most of us would have flunked this black history test, as most are clueless on the life and achievements of Garfield Devoe Rogers, e.g., G.D. Rogers.

"When G.D. Rogers Sr. died in 1951, the funeral procession traveled nearly 50 miles, a convoy of Fords and Oldsmobiles streaming through Tampa's black neighborhoods and its white country estates, past the farming communities and pastures farther south before reaching a little Methodist church in Bradenton."

"Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, presided over the funeral. One newspaper later said that the "black Jesus" must have died," wrote the St. Pete Times.

Dr. Rogers was an extraordinary businessman becoming wealthy during an era where racial boundaries were clearly enforced, to limits one's prospects and future.

Here are a few eye opening articles on the man and his great achievements:

1. http://www.sptimes.com/2003/01/10/Floridian/Beyond_racial_boundar.shtml
2. http://www.bradenton.com/681/story/49036.html

If we don't learn our African American history and record it in books and electronic records, it will be lost forever, and the next generation will never know of our achievements nor of our existence during these periods of time, after slavery and the beginining of the Civil Rights Movement.

I've done the Lord's will and made my very small contribution of keeping our positive achievements and HBCU sports happenings at the forefront of America's consciousness.

-beepbeep