CHALLENGING CHILDHOOD
Assuring kids of hope
by: Erica Rodriguez
Florida Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead beat childhood poverty -- and he believes today's children can do the same.
A native of Jacksonville, Fla., Anstead, 70, was born just after the Great Depression, grew up during World War II and watched his mother struggle to make ends meet.
"Right after I was born, my father abandoned our family and left our mother with six children and really no means to support them," Anstead said.
That's when things got rough.
"Conditions initially were pretty severe," he said. "Probably the good news for me was when you're just one, two, three or four years old, you're not paying much attention."
Anstead, youngest of the six, thanks the creation of public housing in the late 1930s for his family's survival.
After a lengthy battle to get approved for a home, the Ansteads eventually moved into a housing project in the Springfield area called Brentwood, which the government at the time built strictly for white people because of segregation.
"This was a dramatic change in the fortunes of the Anstead family, because this was a brand new housing project," Anstead said. "And we got one of the larger apartments that had three bedrooms in it."
Life in Brentwood
In those years, the Brentwood neighborhood included a community center, ball fields, basketball courts, vast parks, playgrounds and gardens. The community center also had an activities director who organized sports and events for children in the area.
"From a very early age, from my mother working, I was more or less of a latchkey kid – that is that I would come home and my mother would be at work," he said. "But I would go to these parks, and I learned to play every sport."
Anstead credits his participation in team sports, which he continued through high school and college, for keeping him out of trouble and for providing important lessons about life.
"This was very much a formative part of my young life in terms of belonging to something and being valued," he said.
But not all of Anstead's memories about life in a housing project prove as cheerful.
Anstead remembers going home from Brentwood Elementary School during lunch periods, because he didn't have money or food to take from home.
"I'm sure there were a number of kids who lived in the same housing project that did the same thing," he said. "It was a pride thing, that is by leaving the school grounds and going home no one else knew that you weren't going to eat lunch -- that you didn't have lunch."
When holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around, the Ansteads did not celebrate over turkey or ham dinners but potato stew or dumplings, instead.
"At Christmas time, I was fortunate if I got one gift," Anstead said, pointing out that his mother always found a way to make sure Santa stopped at their apartment each year. "But I did get a gift, and that gift was incredible. ... There was just a heightened appreciation for everyting."
While growing up, Anstead worked several jobs, including delivering groceries and moving furniture, to help his family get by and later pay his way through college.
He said he owes his strong work ethic and drive to his mother.
"I don't think even modern kids have to look around very far for a grandparent or someone, others who have overcome things," Anstead said. "Most importantly, they've got to realize that they're probably the solution to their individual problem – and somehow, they've got to look around to their family or friends and find a role model."
Fred Hazouri, a judge in Florida's 4th District Court of Appeals, said he found one in Anstead.
"When we were younger, we all looked up to him," said Hazouri, who grew up in the same neighborhood. "He was our role model."
Hazouri's wife, Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente, said she believes Anstead has continued that role through his work.
"My observation, having been his colleague on the supreme court for over a decade, is that he has a strong sense of protecting individual rights and a great deal of passion and compassion for those who are less fortunate in society," Pariente said.
Florida's future
Though Anstead believes each child has potential for a positive future, he said Florida's children living in poverty today do not have the same opportunities and resources in their neighborhoods as he did in his childhood.
Anstead blames "poor political leadership" during the 1950s and 1960s for that "tragedy."
"As blacks began to move into the units in this housing project and the surrounding neighborhood, the political leadership in Jacksonville made some absolutely horrendous decisions," Anstead explained.
Anstead said the local government stopped funding maintenance of parks and gardens near the housing projects, pulled activity directors from those communities, and bulldozed public golf courses and swimming pools in the area.
"There was simply example after example of this terrible local leadership response, ..." Anstead said. "They virtually destroyed neighborhoods and certainly destroyed all of these opportunities for young people to have all of these kinds of things available to them. ... We are still suffering serious effects from those shortsighted decisions that were made then."
Anstead said things seem to be getting better in Brentwood, with the old buildings recently replaced and a playground sitting just opposite the old community center.
Still, Anstead said, he believes people in the more affluent parts of Jacksonville should pay more attention to issues in lower-income areas like Brentwood.
"They click their tongues and say 'that’s terrible' when they read the headlines in the paper about a 
teenager being shot or injured in that neighborhood, ..." Anstead added. "But they simply do not identify that the town itself is a single community and that they should not rest until there is good health and good conditions in the entire community."
The first in his family to graduate from college, Anstead worked to pay his way through undergraduate studies and law school at the University of Florida.
He later worked as a trial and appellate lawyer, became a judge in the late 1970s, and earned a Master of Laws degree from the University of Virginia.
Anstead currently serves on the Florida Supreme Court, appointed in 1994 by Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles.
Father of five and grandfather of four, Anstead said he has taken his family to visit Brentwood and play touch football with children in the neighborhood. He has also visited Andrew Jackson High School and talked to teens about his experiences.
Anstead said he plans to spend part of his retirement tackling issues related to poverty.
"At Christmas time, I was fortunate if I got one gift. But I did get a gift, and that gift was incredible. ... There was just a heightened appreciation for everything."
- Harry Lee Anstead, Florida Supreme Court Justice