"Blanche Armwood"(January 23,1890-October 16,1939)

Educator,activist and the first African American woman in the state of Florida to graduate from an accredited law school.Blanche is also known for being the first Executive Secretary of the Tampa Urban League and as a founder of five Household Industrial Arts Schools for African Americans woman in five different states.Armwood High School in Seffner,Florida.She was born in Tampa, Florida to Levi Armwood,Jr. & Margaret Holloman.Born into a prominent middle-class family,she was one of five children.Her great uncle John Armwood was a negotiator between the Seminole Native Americans,and white settlers along the Florida frontier.John also homesteaded 159 acres of land in Hillborough County.Her daddy was Tampa's first African American policeman who also served as a country deputy sheriff John along with Balance's brother,Walter,owned the only African American owned drugstore in Tampa the "Gem." Walter held positions as a professor at Bethune-Cookman University and as a state supervisor for the U.S. Bureau Negro Economics.Her material grandfather,Adam Holloman owned citrus groves and was the Hillsborough County commissioner from 1873-1877.Blanche graduated with honors from St.Peter Claver Catholic School in 1902.That same year,she passed the State Uniform Teacher's Examination.During that time,Tampa did not have a high school for African Americans.As a result,at the age of twelve,Blanche parents sent her to Spelman Seminary (later Spelman College) she excelled in English and Latin courses and graduated summa cum laude from Spelman in 1906 earning a teacher's certificate.Blanche returned to Tampa where she began teaching in the Hillsborough County Public Schools where she would remain for the seven years.In 1913 Blanche suspended her teaching career when she married attorney Daniel Webster Perkins;a marriage that would soon result in divorce.Her service to the community began in 1914 when the Tampa Gas Company,in conjunction with the Hillsborough County Board of Education and the Colored Ministers Alliance commissioned her to organize an industrial arts school designed to train African American women in the domestic sciences.From this alliance spawned the Tampa School of Household Arts which was founded around 1915 and trained African American women and girls to use then modern household gas appliances as well as other skills which would enable the students to excel in domestic service.Following the school's first year of operation,over two hundred women received certificates of completion.Blanche would go on to establish similar schools in Roanoke,Virginia;Rock Hill,South Carolina;Athens,Georgia and New Orleans,Louisiana.Between 1917&  1920,while living in New Orleans and married to dentist John C.Beatty,Blanche received state and federal acclaim for her work in training domestic workers.In 1918, she published Food Conversation in the Home a cookbook popular with women of all races.Because the book was published during World War I,her introduction was particularly poignant in stating that:"Every pound of white flour saved is equal to a bullet in our Nation's defense."In 1922,Jesse Thomas of the National Urban League nominated Blanche as the first Executive Secretary of the Tampa Urban League. Throughout her service with the Tampa Urban League,she simultaneously served as assistant principal at Tampa's Harlem Academy School.Soon after she was appointed as the first Supervisor of Negro Schools by the Hillsborough County School Board.During her tenure as Supervisor,Blanche established five new school buildings,increased African American teacher salaries and extended the school year for African American teachers from six to nine months.She also credited for establishing the Booker T.Washington High School in 1926 for African Americans in Tampa.In addition to her leadership positions in Tampa she also held positions in Several organizations as the Chair of the Home Economics Department of the National Association of Colored Women,National Campaign for the Republican Party and as State Organizer for the Louisiana Chapter NAACP. Blanche increased interest in politics and equal rights for African Americans and women led to pursue a career in law.In 1934 Blanche enrolled in Howard Law School.She earned her jurist doctorate in 1938 making her first African American from the state of Florida to graduate from an accredited law school.While on a speaking tour Medford,Massachusetts,Blanche became ill and died unexpectedly at the age of 49.In 1984,Congressman Michael Bilirakis and the Florida House of Representatives paid tribute to Blanche's legacy.That same year,Blanche Armwood Comprehensive High School (today,Armwood High School) in Tampa was opened in her honor.