Mission. Vision. History

IN MEMORY OF

 James O. Simmons

Founding President & Chief Executive Officer

Pinellas County Urban League, Inc.

1977 – 2005

The Pinellas County Urban League family mourns with profound sorrow and immeasurable gratitude the passing of its founder — a man who did not merely lead an organization, but built one from a folding chair and borrowed desks into a cornerstone of justice, equity, and hope for thousands of families across Pinellas County and beyond.

A Foundation Built from Nothing

James O. Simmons came into the world facing odds that would define lesser men. Born in Rutherford County, Tennessee, he lost his father before he could walk — he was just seven months old. His mother gathered her children and her resilience and moved the family to Murfreesboro, where James would grow, learn, and quietly prepare for a life that mattered. From Holloway High School to the United States Air Force — where he served with distinction and earned his bachelor's degree in labor relations — Simmons built himself into a man of uncommon discipline, vision, and service.

Breaking Barriers Before It Had a Name

Long before he arrived in Pinellas County, Simmons was already dismantling walls. As a farm labor recruiter and then Job Corps Recruiter for the Florida State Employment Service, he understood that access to opportunity was not a privilege — it was a right. He became only the second African American Inspector for Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties under the Florida State Hotel and Restaurant Commission. He was elected President of the Progress Village Civic Council, where he secured infrastructure improvements, developed the Simmons-Bowers Community Park — named in his honor — and broke the color barrier for African Americans to serve as School Crossing Guard Safety Officers in Hillsborough County. His advocacy led directly to the hiring of Mrs. Lillie People, the first African American School Crossing Guard Safety Officer in the county, a door that has since opened for hundreds who followed.

Selected by Mayor Dick Greco to lead the Department of Labor's CETA-funded program for Tampa and Hillsborough County, Simmons grew that program from a $50,000 planning office into a $17-million employment initiative — rated by the U.S. Department of Labor as one of the top 14 CETA programs in the entire country. When political pressures — the kind that surface when an African American commands that level of resources and influence — made his position untenable, he did not shrink. He simply moved on, and in doing so, found his life's greatest assignment.

The Urban League Calls — And He Stays

In 1977, a coalition of influential African American leaders in St. Petersburg reached out to Simmons for temporary help establishing a new Urban League affiliate. He had a federal job waiting in Atlanta. What he found here was something more compelling: the chance to build something from the ground up, to help people in the most direct way he knew. On the day he was supposed to report to Atlanta, he picked up the phone and told them he was staying.

He recalled those early days with characteristic understatement: "When I first came to the Urban League, I did not have a desk. I sat in a chair, and used the seat of another chair for a desk. Honeywell finally gave us three old gray metal desks. They were beautiful to me."

In 1978, under his leadership, the Pinellas County Urban League was established as the 114th affiliate of the National Urban League. What began with four staff members and a $50,000 CETA grant grew — under his steady, accountable, and visionary hand — into a seventeen-program agency operating on an annual budget exceeding $6 million. In 2001, the Urban League's building mortgage was fully retired, with no fundraising drives required. Simmons attributed that achievement simply to "good management and foresight."

A Legacy Measured in Lives

The programs Simmons built and sustained under the PCUL umbrella were not merely services — they were lifelines. Alternative schooling for at-risk preteens. A Minority Skills Bank. Mobile health care and screening. Crime prevention education. Home energy assistance. The Nurses Tutorial Program. A weatherization initiative so effective it was replicated across Florida communities — and in some cases operated by the PCUL itself. Barbara Pacheco, then President and CEO of the United Way of Pinellas County, said it clearly: "Jim has invented and reinvented the Urban League over the years to attend to the needs of his constituents, to adjust programs to emerging needs."

His own words on that legacy speak loudest. When reflecting on the young people his programs served, he said: "There are no throw-away kids. I believe that." And of his programs themselves: "It's like your family. There's not a child you favor. We gave birth to all of them."

After the League: Still Serving

After 28 years of service, James O. Simmons retired as the PCUL's founding President & CEO. The Board of Directors bestowed upon him the title of President Emeritus and named the Urban League's home the "James O. Simmons Equal Opportunity Building" — a permanent and fitting tribute to the man who built it. But retirement did not slow him. He chaired the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church Neighborhood Development Corporation, restoring its legal standing and 501(c)(3) status. He then turned his full attention to the Florida High School for Accelerated Learning in Hillsborough County, where under his board leadership, three charter schools were opened — Seminole Heights (2010), West University (2012), and Town and Country (2014) — giving 242 students a second chance at a high school diploma. That number will grow. His work made it so.

Honors & Recognition

Among the many honors bestowed upon James O. Simmons during his lifetime: the Presidential Citation; the Air Force Commendation Medal for distinguished military service; listing in Who's Who Among Black Americans; a Hillsborough County park bearing his name (Simmons-Bowers Community Park); and the James O. Simmons Equal Opportunity Building of the Pinellas County Urban League. Each recognition is a marker — but none of them is the measure of the man. The measure is in the families housed, the workers employed, the children educated, and the barriers removed that no longer stand because he decided they should not.

He came for a few months. He stayed 28 years.

He found three borrowed desks beautiful, and built a multimillion-dollar institution around that gratitude.

He believed there were no throw-away people. He spent his entire life proving it.

 Pinellas County Urban League, Inc.

333 31st Street North  ·  St. Petersburg, Florida

An Affiliate of the National Urban League  ·  Founded 1977