Ulysses Bradshaw Kinsey

1918 - 2005

Ulysses Bradshaw Kinsey, a longtime principal of Palmview Elementary School and one of the area's leading black educators for nearly 50 years, died early Saturday after slipping into a sleep March 25 that gradually darkened into death in the space of a few days. He was 86.

"He was in peace the whole time," said his wife of 63 years, Christine.

"Mr. Kinsey" -- he always insisted on the title "Mr." and would even throw away mail that did not include it in the address -- was a pillar of Palm Beach County, where he made memorable contributions to education as a principal at a school that now is named for him: U.B. Kinsey, formerly known as Palmview, formerly known as Industrial High School.

He was born in Fort White, near Lake City in north Florida, on June 27, 1918, where his father, Henry, owned 1,000 acres of land and raised hogs, peanuts and vegetables, and his mother, Cora, took him to church and school in nearby Webster.

He was one of 10 children. His father moved the family to Palm Beach County in 1926, when he was just 8.

He was proud of the fact that he never drank from "Colored" water fountains. Interviewed in 2004 by The Palm Beach Post, Mr. Kinsey recounted how, when his father came to pay his taxes, he would tell the young Kinsey to "go over there and drink some of that 'White' water," at the segregated, labeled fountains in the courthouse.

Frustrated in his ambition to become a lawyer -- "I found out they had bars as high as the sky to keep you from getting into the University of Florida," Mr. Kinsey said in 2004 -- the young man turned to teaching, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in education from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. He married Christine in 1941 and was hired at Industrial High, his alma mater, as a teacher with a salary of $75 a month, while starting white teachers were paid $125 a month. He taught almost any subject, from civics to reading.

Just one month after starting, Mr. Kinsey and others challenged the school board over racial discrimination in teacher salaries, and Thurgood Marshall, later U.S. Supreme Court justice, argued their case. They won, and Mr. Kinsey's annual salary jumped to $1,500 in 1942. Then he and fellow teachers took up a fight on behalf of the schoolchildren.

Sent only six kids home in 39 years

As World War II developed, local harvesters pressured education leaders to limit school years for black schools to seven months so students could be used for labor.

"There was no earthly reason schoolchildren should interrupt their future or education to pick crops for people that wanted cheap labor," Mr. Kinsey said in 1992.

Mr. Kinsey and others spent two years fighting the decision, and in 1944, black schools returned to nine-month schedules.

He went on to become an assistant principal at Industrial High until the school moved out of its facilities in 1951. The grounds, south of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and east of Tamarind Avenue, were proclaimed Palmview Elementary, and Mr. Kinsey became the school's first principal.

In his time at Palmview, Mr. Kinsey strove to make the school its best and, in doing so, affected the lives of thousands of children. He realized he could use his dignified demeanor to his advantage, to awe youngsters into behaving.

"I told them: 'You're going to obey. If you disrespect, if you disobey, I'll call your parents and have your parents take you home.' In 39 years, I only had to send six kids home. I could walk into the cafeteria, and the kids would be having breakfast, and they wouldn't say a word. You could hear a pin drop."

Mr. Kinsey established a scholarship fund that provides three promising students from low-income families $1,000 each for college.

He had mixed feelings about busing. Although he was all for educational equality, he came to believe that busing destroyed a sense of community in the name of strict adherence to the law.

"You had one black kid sitting in a class with 25 white kids," he said in 2004. "They were sending black kids from the West Palm Beach community to 14 white schools. The superintendent called me one day, and he said: 'Would you take a seat? Because I've got a job I want to offer you.'

"I said: 'I don't have to take a seat, because my legs are strong.'

"He said: 'I'd like to make you assistant superintendent, and I'll put 17 divisions under your supervision. And one of those divisions would be busing.'

"And I told Lloyd Early, who was the superintendent at that time: 'There's no way in the world I'm going to bus black kids. You're going to make me the black face to bus black kids out of the black community to the white schools? No. I don't want the job.'

"He says: 'Well, you've got $10,000, an automobile.'

"I said: 'I don't care what it is. I'm not interested.'

"And this is why I really never took a job as an administrative person."

As his community began to struggle with drug dealers in the 1980s, Mr. Kinsey announced that he wanted to talk to them. The dealers, many of whom attended Palmview as children, came and, out of respect for their former principal, stayed away from the school thereafter.

He was proud school bears name

Forty-eight years after starting as a teacher, Mr. Kinsey's extraordinary career at Palmview came to a close in 1989. He retired at the age of 71. About 30,000 children had passed through the school's doors during his tenure. That year, the school was renamed U.B. Kinsey-Palmview Elementary.

He was proud of his role there, proud that his name is on the school today, but not to the point of vainglory.

"They didn't give me the deed to the place. They didn't give me the keys," he said, laughingly, in 2004.

A student named Rashard Jackson wrote him a penciled testimonial, rappingly rhymed. Mr. Kinsey kept it in a scrapbook:

"Your last day is a very sad day.

You have been a good principal

these 48 years.

Did you get all these suits from

Sears?

Why do you have to leave this

school?

Can you just be cool?

If you have to leave, you have to

leave.

If you don't, stay please!

We love you, Mr. Kinsey, please stay!

If you don't, come back some day!"

Following retirement, he remained committed to improving his neighborhood and formed a nonprofit development company with former Mayor Sam Thomas. The two were responsible for securing money to build Freshwater Lakes, a low-income housing development near the school named after him.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Kinsey is survived by six children. They are Eula Kinsey Broadmax and son-in-law Charles Broadmax of Delray Beach; Bradshaw Kinsey and daughter-in-law, Penelope, of West Chester, Pa.; Bernard Kinsey and daughter-in-law, Shirley, of Los Angeles; Cassandra Kinsey-Scott and son-in-law, Richard Scott, of West Palm Beach; Sheryl Kinsey of White Plains, N.Y.; and Linda Kinsey-Kinard and son-in-law, Joseph Kinard, of San Diego; an older sister, Mamie Kinsey Lucas; numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

A wake will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at U.B. Kinsey-Palmview Elementary School, 800 W. 11th St. in West Palm Beach.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Redemptive Life Fellowship Church, 2101 N. Australian Ave. in West Palm Beach, with the Rev. Gerald Kirsner of Tabernacle Baptist Church officiating. Arrangements will be handled by Coleman Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Tabernacle Baptist Church, which is being restored from damage sustained during the hurricanes in September.