Pompey park is located at 1101 Northwest 2nd Street, Delray Beach, FL and is named for Charles Spencer Pompey. He was a coach and social studies teacher & principal at the formerly all-black Carver High School in Delray Beach . Pompey was also a local Civil rights activist, author, and founded the Palm Beach County Teachers’ Association for black teachers. Pompey’s father was S.F. Pompey; and his mother was Mary Louise Wright Pompey, the daughter of a freed slave. Hattie Ruth Pompey, his wife of fifty-two years, was a respected educator as well. After her husband’s death, she published his manuscript for the book, More Rivers To Cross.
Here are some highlights of Pompey’s life:
- 1915 born in Florida
- 1920 living at 1507 Breddies St., Jacksonville, FL with his parents S.F. & Louise (Louisa) and his siblings Frank, Booker, Inez and James. S.F. was a Railroad laborer and Louise was a laundress.
- 1930 living just out of city limits off Oak St., Suwannee, FL with his widowed mother Louisa and siblings Samuel, Frank, Booker, Inez, James. Louisa was a laundress at home.
- 1942 Pompey was one of three black teachers behind a class-action lawsuit against the Palm Beach County School Board and its superintendent protesting a $25-per-month difference in the salaries of white and black teachers.
- 1948 married Hattie Ruth Keys
- 1950’s protested Delray Beach’s whites-only beach and pushed for the first organized recreation programs for the city’s black children.
- 2001 Spencer Pompey died in Delray Beach, FL
Sources: www.ancestry.com, www.historicpalmbeach.com
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