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New school named for Tampa civil rights champion Warren Hope Dawson

 
Warren Hope Dawson, center, shown here at a Tampa Police Department news conference, was instrumental in the fight to desegregate Hillsborough's public schools. [OCTAVIO JONES   |   Times (2015]
Warren Hope Dawson, center, shown here at a Tampa Police Department news conference, was instrumental in the fight to desegregate Hillsborough's public schools. [OCTAVIO JONES | Times (2015]
Published Jan. 18, 2017

TAMPA — Warren Hope Dawson helped lead the effort to desegregate Hillsborough's public schools.

Now his name will grace one.

The Hillsborough School Board voted Tuesday to name the district's new elementary school in Riverview after Dawson, a Tampa attorney who specializes in civil rights and labor relations. Currently under construction and slated to open in August, the new school is located in the Triple Creek subdivision south of Big Bend Road and east of Balm Riverview Road.

In naming the school, the district recognized Dawson, 77, as a community leader who has made a lasting impact on the Tampa Bay area.

"The legal work I did over 27 years to assist in the desegregating of public schools was indeed a labor of love, and something I'm very proud of," Dawson said in an interview Wednesday. "I'm also proud of this high honor of having a school named Warren Hope Dawson Elementary School."

Dawson said it was fitting that the honor came in the same year he is celebrating his "golden anniversary" of practicing law.

A graduate of Florida A&M University, Dawson served as an active duty officer in the U.S. Army on active duty from 1961 to 1963 and received his law degree from Howard University in 1966.

In 1974, Dawson became the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, described in the lawsuit Manning vs. the School Board of Hillsborough County as "all minor Negro children and their parents residing in Hillsborough County." In that role, he was responsible for monitoring and enforcing the desegregation order handed down by the federal courts, according to background information submitted to the School Board.

He worked 24 of the next 27 years without compensation. In 2001, a federal appeals court ruled that the School District had achieved "unitary status" and no longer required federal judicial supervision.

Dawson also participated in a voting rights case, Warren vs. City of Tampa, that challenged the at-large system of City Council elections and led to the creation of single-member districts in the city and county. He lobbied for the Florida Legislature to adopt single-member districts.

In 1970, Dawson ran for a state House seat. He didn't win ­— not then, nor in later attempts — but he was the first black candidate entered in a runoff in Hillsborough County since Reconstruction. He was also the city's first black assistant city attorney.

Before the 1990 Super Bowl in Tampa, Dawson pushed for the integration of the Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla. And last year he was elected to the Judicial Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, estimated to have 7.5 million members in 39 countries.

Among those who wrote letters of recommendation for the honor were former School Board member Doris Ross Reddick, Florida Bar Association president William Schifino and Hillsborough NAACP president Bennie Small.

Warren Hope Dawson Elementary has capacity of about 950 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade in 48 classrooms. The school will pull students from Summerfield, Stowers, Collins, Sessums and Boyette Springs elementary schools. Principal Derrick McLaughlin was appointed in December.

Contact Tony Marrero at tmarrero@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3374. Follow @tmarrerotimes.