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RESOLUTION URGING THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE TO DESIGNATE BISCAYNE BOULEVARD FROM N.E. 54TH STREET TO N.E. 95th STREET AS �M. ATHALIE RANGE BOULEVARD�

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WHEREAS, M. Athalie Range, a pioneer in Florida and Miami politics and a legend in Miami�s black community, died on November 14, 2006, just one week after her 91st birthday; and
WHEREAS, M. Athalie Range was born Mary Athalie Wilkinson in Key West in 1915, and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School during the Great Depression; and
WHEREAS, in 1937, she married Oscar Range and Oscar and M. Athalie Range had four children; and
WHEREAS, in 1953, two years before Martin Luther King Jr. began his civil rights campaign in Montgomery, Alabama, M. Athalie Range was fighting for improvements to schools that were substandard, overcrowded and segregated for Miami�s black children; and
WHEREAS, at one school board meeting, she filled the audience of an all-white school board meeting with 150 black parents and demanded immediate improvements to schools in the black community; and
WHEREAS, her actions led to improvements to existing schools in the black community, plus the construction of a new Liberty City elementary school, which was the first such school built in Miami�s predominantly black neighborhoods in decades; and
WHEREAS, in the latter half of the 1950s, she fought to desegregate all-white schools in Miami, and on the first day of school in 1959, she walked her youngest son Gary to previously all-white Orchard Villa Elementary School to attend school there; and
WHEREAS, in the 1960s, M. Athalie Range became the first black City of Miami Commissioner, having first been appointed to the post, then later easily winning reelection by garnering the support of black and white Miamians alike; and
WHEREAS, in 1971, Range became both the first black cabinet director and the first woman cabinet director in Florida history, when Governor Reuben Askew appointed her director of the Florida Department of Community Affairs; and
WHEREAS, as the 1970s ended, M. Athalie Range had gone from cleaning rail cars nearly four decades earlier to serving on the board of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, the entity that operates Amtrak, having been appointed to the post by President Jimmy Carter; and
WHEREAS, in the decades since, Range started a cultural arts foundation that bears her name, headed the Virginia Key Beach Trust, and mentored many of Miami-Dade County�s political leaders, including former U.S. Representative Carrie Meek and former Board of County Commissioners Chair Barbara Carey-Shuler; and
WHEREAS, M. Athalie Range remained active in politics up to her death this past fall; and
WHEREAS, Senator Frederica Wilson has filed SB 2296, which would designate Biscayne Boulevard between N.E. 54th �Street and N.E. 95th Street as �M. Athalie Range Boulevard� and this Board finds this designation to be a fitting tribute to such a significant figure in MiamiDade County�s history,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA, that this Board:
Section 1. Urges the Florida Legislature to designate Biscayne Boulevard from N.E. 54th Street to N.E. 95th Street as �M. Athalie Range Boulevard.�
Section 2. Urges the Florida Legislature to pass SB 2296 sponsored by Senator Frederica Wilson or similar legislation.
Section 3. Directs the Clerk of the Board to transmit certified copies of the resolution to the Governor, the Senate President, the House Speaker, and the chair and members of the Miami-Dade State Legislative Delegation.
Section 4. Directs the County's state lobbyists to advocate for the issues identified in sections 1 and 2 above, and directs the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs to include this item in the 2007 state legislative package.