Alvin Walters Sr. and Carl Hall, lifelong residents of Washington Heights, recently gave a tour of the once-bustling intersection of Lemon Avenue and Martin L. King Jr. Boulevard.
When Jim Crow laws banned African Americans from staying in white-owned hotels or shopping in white-owned stores, local Black families opened rooming houses, stores, restaurants, and other businesses in Washington Heights to serve the Black community.
“Everything that they had over there, we had over here,” Walters said.
By “over there” Walters was referring to the former white section of Sebring, which was west of the Amtrak railroad tracks.
Both Walters, 68, and Hall, 74, remember when the Seaborn Railroad tracks next to Sebring Parkway served as the dividing line between the black and white sections of town. When the horn at the Sebring Water plant blew at 9 p.m., Walters was told, “You better make sure your behind was across the track.”
Walters remembered the Jim Crow days.
“We had a Black chef that was well-known,” Walters said. “Fisher’s Restaurant was a restaurant in the white section of town. We could not go to the front door and eat at that restaurant even though they had a Black chef. We could go to the back door, order hamburgers and pay for it in the back, but still you couldn’t go in there.”
The buildings that housed Black businesses from Washington Heights’ heyday are empty lots now, but other buildings remain. They’ve been abandoned, repurposed, or home to newer businesses.
On the northeast corner of the intersection, concrete columns on 420 MLK Jr. Blvd. that once supported a roof point into the blue sky.
“The upstairs in that building was once a rooming house; downstairs was a beauty salon, a shoe shine stand and a bar,” Hall said. “Many of the buildings in this area were rooming houses, particularly for Jamaican fruit pickers brought here by Sebring Packing Company.”
Walters remembered Sylvester Lewis, who owned the busy barbershop in the two-story building. Men would talk of the politics of the day.
“A lot of men and boys got their hair cut there,” he said.
The corner contains active Black businesses, including The Spot and Davis’ Deluxe Designs, owned and operated by Dennis Davis. Davis designs shirts and other clothes. He is also a full-time real estate agent, Hall said. Shine Pool Hall is in business, in the same space where Bethea pool hall had been for many, many years, Hall said.
Another corner building, 501 MLK Jr. Blvd., was once a gas station owned by a man named Willy Robbers, Walters said.
In the 700-block of Lemon Avenue, vacant lots once held more rooming houses, a movie theater, taxi stands, and restaurants, Walters said.
“This part of town at the time was loaded with restaurants and rooming houses,” Walters said. “There was Joe’s Dry Cleaners, Moore’s Grocery (755 Lemon Ave.), and businesses that supplied items the black community needed.”
At the corner of MLK Jr. Boulevard and Washington Avenue, the coral-colored Wilson Funeral Home served Black Sebring residents while Lakeview Cemetery served as their final resting place. The building has been renovated, with a new roof, windows and paint job. It is owned by a Bartow resident.
Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to outlaw discrimination in such public accommodations as restaurants, hotels, stores, and private schools. “Things began to change in 1967, 1968,” Hall said.
Over at the Blacks-only Lakeside Cemetery, Hall stops to visit his brother’s grave.
“My brother was a U.S. Army captain in Vietnam,” Hall said. “He was born in 1943 and was seven years older than me. He was killed in action. There’s a fellow soldier who was in his company who tracked us down, and he was with him the night he was killed. We talk on the phone all the time.”
So, what happened to all those businesses that once served the Black community? They have been replaced by other businesses, but the commercial activity in Washington Heights is not what it once was, Walters said.
“Like anything else, time changes things,” Walters said. “People transition, people move on.”
Walters and Hall offered other facts from Sebring’s Black history:
The first Black settlement in Sebring was on the beach behind the Elks Club
Adam McPherson and sons Will and Turner from Auburndale served as mule team masters
James Grahams was the first Black masonry builder in Sebring
Rev. Jones Henry Grady served as the pastor of the wooden AME Church in 1917
J.E. Aaron in 1925 built many homes in the area
Tandy Brunough was George Sebring’s gardener – she also sold sweet potatoes.
