Robert L. Taylor, Newtown Community Leader, Dies At 96: Report

SARASOTA, FL — Robert L. Taylor, a leader in the Newtown community, died Wednesday at 96, the Herald-Tribune reported.

He was the longtime manager of the Newtown Recreation Center, which changed its name to the Robert L. Taylor Community Complex in 2005 to honor him.

Taylor oversaw the recreation center from 1950 until 1986, a period that saw significant social changes, reports said. At the start of his tenure, the city’s recreation department was still segregated, and swimming and other activities were off limits to the Black community. He responded by creating programs specifically for that community.

Throughout his career and beyond the scope of his work, as well, he was a mentor to many children in the community, reports said.

He was born in Orange County, where he was raised by his grandmother, the Herald-Tribune reported. He moved to the Sarasota area – the Overtown neighborhood, which, today, is called the Rosemary District – when he was 13.

He graduated from Booker High School and then went on to Morehouse College in Atlanta. Taylor served in the U.S. Army for three years during World War II before returning to Morehouse to complete his business education and earn his degree.

When he returned to Sarasota after college, took a temporary job with the recreation center.

“My plan was to go back and study accounting,” Taylor told the Herald-Tribune in 2015. “They called me to come to the center and I said I’d try it for the summer, and I never left.”

He added various programming to the center, including flag football, baseball and softball.

When he first took over, the city’s beaches were still segregated. So, a swimming pool was built at the rec center in 1957. There wasn’t staff to watch the pool, though, so Taylor also became the swimming instructor, reports said.

He retired from the recreation center in 1986, but he wasn’t done with his work in the community. He worked with toddlers at Helen R. Payne Day Nursery.

A religious man, he served as the first Black deacon of downtown Sarasota’s First Baptist Church, reports said. He also taught Sunday school there.