GEORGE ROSS & DAVIS STREET

(Source of image: Florida State Archives)

From this angle, Davis Street looks like a wide river of bricks.  The business to the left was a grocery store.  According to the 1942 city directory, "Brown's Supermarket" stood at 1400 Davis Street, near its intersection with West 4th.  The establishment was owned by Morris M. Brown, who lived on Boulevard Avenue near West 16th.  By 1956, the structure housed Young's Confectionary, presided over by Mrs. Gertrude L. Young. 

The old building is gone, and an abandoned grocery store occupies the spot today.  Located nearby are Darnell-Cookman Middle School and St. Stephens AME Church.  Interstate 95 runs just to the west.

LEADER LIVED HERE -- The scene above would've been familiar to George E. Ross, who resided in the dark two-story house with the squared gable.  Ross made local history: He was the last African American to serve on the Jacksonville city council prior to the modern era.  Ross sat on the council long ago, from 1901 to 1907.

Born in 1869, Ross hailed from Gainesville, Florida, but he grew up in Cedar Key and Key West.  At age fifteen he came to Jacksonville to enroll in Cookman Institute, which later became part of Bethune-Cookman College.  Ross remained a strong ally of the city's African American educational institutions.

Ross earned a living as a lawyer, a businessman, and a cigar maker, eventually opening the George Ross Cigar Factory.  After the Great Fire of 1901, he worked hard as a member of the city council's committee for rebuilding Jacksonville.  Consequently, Ross earned widespread praise for his work.  He also became active in another issue: the weeding of African Americans from the city's fire department during the early 1900s.  In spite of his efforts, however, race became a determinant in the hiring and firing of staff.  The fire department turned lily white for many years to come. 

Racial prejudice eventually cost Ross his own council position.  After another African American councilman, J. Douglas Wetmore, was defeated in a 1903 election, Ross had remained as that body's only black member.  In 1907, though, his white enemies had his council district gerrymandered.  In other words, it was redrawn so that it included many voters not favorable to Ross.  His had been the last African American district in the city.  Black residents had little opportunity to elect another African American from their community until the 1960s.  

After his departure from the council, Ross continued to serve black Jacksonville for five more decades.  He became very involved in the Prince Hall Lodge, Free Accepted Mason, and as a member of nearby St. Stephens's AME Church.  When Ross died in Jacksonville in 1966, the "Star Edition" of the Florida Times-Union honored him as a "pioneer resident."

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