Prevell Barber
Prevell Barber’s birth mother passed away when the little girl was only three years old.
She lived with her grandmother in Georgia until her mother’s sister and husband took over as surrogate parents.
In the summer, Barber came to Sarasota to work in her uncle’s grocery store. She sold cookies sometimes eating more than were sold. The high school graduate entered Florida A&M University to major in elementary education and minor in history. Years later, as a 2nd grade teacher, she reluctantly applied to the University of Chicago, was accepted and attended graduate school each summer for six years to earn a master’s degree. When local activists pushed to integrate Lido Beach, Barber was in the carload of freedom fighters with Neil Humphrey, Allease Suarez and her brother in law to take a stand in the sand amid name calling. “Well God made the water. It wasn’t made by man so it should be exposed to everybody,” Barber said. On weekdays, the group drove to Lido to step into the water and heard the “n-word” hurled. “I had heard it so much, it didn’t bother me.” Through many civic and social organizations such as the Royal SaraMana Club, Barber and a cadre of Newtown community women organized debutante cotillion balls to mentor and introduce young African American women to society.
