Join the TLH 200 Project

Friends, I need your help in naming the Tallahassee 200 – a list of the people who helped make our town someplace special.

As part of the TLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project, the Democrat wants to highlight 200 people who lived here after 1824. I’m going to get with Real Talk 93.3’s The Greg Tish Show, and you, to come up with a list of people from all walks of life that helped mold a few cabins along what became Monroe Street into the political capital of a mega-state and the place we call home.

Shortly after Tallahassee was founded Ralph Waldo Emerson described it as “grotesque... settled by public officers, land speculators, and desperadoes.” Far be it for me to argue with one of America’s most noted philosophers and essayists, but that’s what, half of our population, maybe. Incidentally, the Tallahassee Historical Society sells t-shirts emblazoned with Emerson’s description of the city over a North Florida map as a rallying cry for the bicentennial celebration. Like most of you, I came here from elsewhere and something about Tallahassee enticed me to stay. I’m willing to say it was the people. As a writer, I had the opportunity to walk the city’s streets and talk to its people, much longer than Emerson did.

In real-time, one does not necessarily recognize history or its makers as it happens. There was Anita Davis. I met her at a downtown coffee shop over a blueberry muffin. Then I watched her file a lawsuit against Leon County because no person of color had ever been elected to the county commission. She won that suit in 1986, and was elected to the commission four years later. Or being befriended by Margaret Leonard, a former Tallahassee Democrat metro editor, civil rights freedom writer and the first southern white student to go to jail for voting rights – she never mentioned it.

Send email suggestions of people you think should be included and why, to history@tallahassee.com, and listen for updates on the Greg Tish Show. In addition to our 200 list, we'll be compiling your suggestions and honoring them as well.

We intend to roll out our first 20 names and their minibiographies ahead of the city’s official bicentennial date of March 4 and the final 20 on Dec. 29, the anniversary of the founding of Leon County.