ONE POLITICAL ACTIVIST WOULD HAVE LOVED IT

As we remember the civil rights icon Rosa Parks before she is laid to her final rest Wednesday, Lakeland Ledger political writer Bill Rufty remembers a local woman known as "a civil rights warrior" who became a highly sought after political consultant and campaigner.

He says that Madalynne Brooks, who passed away shortly after the last Lakeland municipal election in 2000 at the age of 78, would likely have loved tomorrow's election. Four of the seven seats on the City Commission are being contested.

Ms. Brooks was the first African-American hired as a corrections officer (back then female corrections officers were known as "matrons") by the Polk County Sheriff's Office, and became a successful businesswoman in the predominantly black northwest Lakeland community. She was a hard working campaigner for candidates and issues, even when it was not safe to do so, as this excerpt from a March Ledger story notes:

"She openly voiced her disgust with the racial injustices that blacks endured in Lakeland and, as a result, she and her family lived with constant death threats that were meant to stop her fight for equality."

"She ignored those threats and was responsible for black youths who staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters at the Kress Store and the McCrory's Store that were downtown. She was also one of the organizers who led the protest movement to integrate the Polk Theatre."

Rufty notes her hard work for candidates:

She became an ardent campaigner and consultant. She would hire workers to pass out flyers for candidates who hired her to run their campaigns in the northwest community and then later to the city as a whole. She personally trained her workers and then checked up on them on Election Day.

At a get-out-the-vote rally in Lakeland one time, she was asked if she was ever prevented from registering to vote in Polk County in the old days of segregation because of her race.

"Well, I know some people had trouble, but, honey, have you ever known anyone to tell me I couldn't do what I was going to do?

"The answer was quick and to the point: "No ma'am. No ma'am, I never have."