CELEBRATIONS
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Idlette Jr., the first African-American elected to the Indian River County
School Board, served from 1974-94.
families to go to high school.
“My dad, he did all of the second grade,” Joe said. “They
were sharecroppers. As soon as a kid got big enough to go to
work, it was requested that they go to work. My mom, she
did eight grades.”
Bernice said her parents left school “after the third or
fourth grade.”
The Idlettes and other blacks who grew up in Gifford have
spoken of far superior resources that were available to white
students in Vero Beach. One black educator said Gifford
students had to make do with hand-me-down textbooks from
Vero schools. Another, a lawyer, said she was surprised after
enrolling at newly integrated Vero Beach High School to find
out students didn’t have to bring their own food for home
economics classes. Idlette Jr. said college scholarships and
financial aid were nonexistent for blacks when schools were
segregated.
“Nobody really cared about educating us,” he said. “We
did the best we could with what we had.”
Bernice said she wanted to be a teacher, “but I ended up
being a beautician, a cosmetologist, which I loved.”
Idlette Jr. served in the Army Signal Corps after high
school. He was stationed in Japan in 1954 when he read about
the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board
of Education, that ordered public schools to desegregate and
to do so “with all deliberate speed.”
“Well, I got out of the service and came home,” he said. “I >>
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