U.S. Post Office Named for Jesse McCrary
Story & photographs by José E. Pérez
A Miami area post office opened some 50 years ago during
the Kennedy Administration has taken on special significance for South
Florida’s history when the building was officially named for a pace-setting
attorney, politician and civil rights activist.
The Little River Post Office at 140 NE 84th St. was
dedicated to the memory of Jesse James McCrary Jr. during a ceremony in which
family and friends recalled the legacy of the man who died in 2007 at age 70.
“I view this as recognition for his service to the
community,” said his widow Margaret McCrary. Her husband, she said, had been “a
wonderful, wonderful husband and a very dedicated and caring father.”
She was joined by the couple’s daughter his daughter
Jessica McCrary Campbell and her husband Donovan Campbell for the ribbon
cutting ceremony and installation of a plaque to mark the occasion. A painting
of McCrary was displayed at the outdoor ceremony.
The dedication came two years after President Barack
Obama signed a law enabling the renaming of the building. Congressional
approval is required for naming of federal buildings. Then Congressman Kendrick
Meek, D-Fla., sponsored the enabling legislation in the U.S. House of
Representatives in June 2010.
Meek called McCrary “one of the outstanding barristers of
our time.” His successor in Congress, Frederica Wilson praised him for “the
tireless efforts” to make it possible.
McCrary was “a wonderful, wonderful local legend,” Wilson
said at the dedication ceremony Friday.
He was “a brilliant man,” added Jo Ann Feindt, U.S.P.S.
Vice President of Area Operations for the Southern Area.
The honor of having the post office named after McCrary
is “a huge, huge tribute to the family,” said Feindt.
Born in the small town of Blitchton, Florida, McCrary graduated
from Howard Academy in Ocala and attended Florida A&M University, where he
obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science and a law degree. He argued
cases before the U.S. Supreme Court; he did not lose any cases before the
Florida Supreme Court.
H. T. Smith, a close friend and trusted colleague of
McCrary’s, said that he “was one of the greatest trailblazers in civil
rights.” Smith pointed out that McCrary
was responsible for “opening opportunities for Black lawyers and judges in
Florida.”
He was a pioneer, as Florida’s first black assistant
attorney general, and as the first black Florida secretary of state since
Reconstruction and a judge for the state Industrial Claims Commission.
McCrary was also the first black lawyer to represent
Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of the largest public school systems in
the country.
“Jesse really was engaged in a lot of the cases that
defended, protected, and expanding the rights of Blacks and other minorities,”
said Smith.
During the ceremony, students from the Jesse J. McCrary
Elementary School, 514 NW 77th St., Miami, named after him, sang a song written
by music teacher Rosena Norelus, which says, in part, “We are one of the best
public schools.”
As to what will happen to the post office in a time when
the U.S. Postal Service is coping with billions of dollars in deficits, Feindt
promised that “we won’t be closing this post office.” In 2011, the Edison
Branch Post Office was closed after almost 60 years of service.
In her remarks, Wilson quoted from a poem that McCrary
(who Smith called “a spell-binding speaker”) often enjoyed reciting: “A Bag of Tools” by R. L. Sharpe. Also known as “Isn’t It Strange,” the poem
speaks of how “to each is given a bag of tools/a shapeless mass and a Book of
Rules.” The verse closes with a choice
for the reader, to be “a stumbling block or a stepping stone.” Wilson, Meek, and others in attendance at the
ceremony, all echoed the sentiment expressed by Smith. “Jesse McCrary lived the life of a stepping
stone for others.”
