Eartha M. M. White: Jacksonville's Humanitarian and the Clara White Mission

Eartha Mary Magdalene White, who lived from 1876 to 1974, was a Jacksonville humanitarian, businesswoman and philanthropist who created educational opportunities and relief for African Americans in northeastern Florida, according to the State Archives of Florida (Florida Memory).

The Florida Women's Hall of Fame, run by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women, says she was born in Jacksonville as the 13th child of a former slave, attended schools in Florida and in New York City, and worked as an educator and publisher (Florida Women's Hall of Fame). The same biography says she died in Jacksonville at 97. The archives record her life dates as 1876 to 1974 (State Archives of Florida).

Her mother was Clara White, whose dates the State Archives give as 1845 to 1920, and whose name the Jacksonville mission carries (Florida Memory). An archives photograph catalogued as PR00852 shows the two women together in Jacksonville.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against two State Archives of Florida catalog records, the Florida Women's Hall of Fame biography, the April 18, 2025 National Register weekly list and the Jacksonville City Council task force timeline.

The answer depends on the source: the mission and the Jacksonville City Council task force timeline give 1904, while state records say the 1930s (Clara White Mission; City Council task force; Florida Women's Hall of Fame).

The mission's own history traces its roots to the 1880s, when Clara English White fed hungry neighbors from her two room house on Clay Street in Jacksonville (Clara White Mission). By 1932, it says, the work had outgrown a home, and Eartha White obtained the old Globe Theatre Building on West Ashley Street and dedicated it to her mother's memory. The Jacksonville City Council's 2018 Task Force on Civil Rights History likewise says the mission has stood since 1932 on the site of the former Ashley's Globe Theater in LaVilla (City Council task force report).

For the Jacksonville mission, the Hall of Fame biography says she established it in honor of her mother in the 1930s, and the State Archives catalog note uses nearly the same words (Hall of Fame; State Archives). Neither state record mentions 1904, while the City Council task force timeline lists 1904 as the year Eartha White officially founded the mission (task force report).

The building itself is now federally recognized. The National Park Service weekly list records the Clara White Mission at 611-615 West Ashley Street, Jacksonville, in Duval County, as listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 18, 2025, under reference SG100011739 (NPS National Register weekly list).

The Jacksonville mission served as a base for food, housing and training programs, and it later served as the headquarters for the Works Progress Administration's arts and sewing projects, according to the mission's own history (Clara White Mission).

During the Second World War, the mission says, soldiers away from home lived on its upper floors, and Eartha White gave rooms to released prisoners and homeless people while she fed and clothed them and helped them find jobs (Clara White Mission). Classes on site included canning, cooking, typing, ceramics and Braille. After renovations were completed in 1946, she encouraged Jacksonville business owners to lease office space on the ground and third floors.

The state records add a prison mission to her work: the Hall of Fame biography says she ran one, and the State Archives catalog note says the same (State Archives of Florida). Today the Clara White Mission describes its purpose as preventing and reducing homelessness through advocacy, housing, job training and employment, in partnership with Jacksonville businesses, and lists a museum among its programs (Clara White Mission).

Beyond the Jacksonville mission, the State Archives credit her with helping found Mercy Hospital and the Boy's Improvement Club (Florida Memory).

The Hall of Fame credits her with the Eartha M.M. White Nursing Home, begun in 1967 (Florida Women's Hall of Fame).

The Jacksonville nursing home grew into the area's largest employer of African Americans, the Hall of Fame biography says (Hall of Fame). The biography also says she donated property for community projects, and the State Archives catalog note adds that those projects included the first park for black children (State Archives of Florida).

The Jacksonville City Council task force timeline gives that park a name, a date and a location: in 1917, under the leadership of Eartha M.M. White, Oakland Playground opened as the first city park specifically for Black citizens, at the northeast corner of East Union Street and Ionia Street next to the Old City Cemetery (City Council task force report).

Florida inducted the Jacksonville humanitarian into the Women's Hall of Fame in 1986 and named her a Great Floridian in 2000, State Archives records show (State Archives of Florida; Florida Memory).

The Great Floridian designation came from the Florida Department of State, according to the archives catalog note for the Jacksonville photograph PR00852 (Florida Memory).

The Hall of Fame is run by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women, a nonpartisan body charged by statute with studying the changing roles of women, at 107 West Gaines Street in Tallahassee, phone 850-414-3300 (Florida Women's Hall of Fame). Its online biography of the Jacksonville honoree lists her hometown but does not print the induction year, so the 1986 date comes from the State Archives record.

In Jacksonville itself, the 2018 City Council task force singled out the Clara White Mission as one of the LaVilla sites with an extensive history tied to her work, calling her a humanitarian and civil rights pioneer, and the building entered the National Register in 2025 (City Council task force report; NPS).

That 2018 report, in its Appendix A, recommended a LaVilla Civil Rights Historic District to preserve the downtown neighborhood's role in Jacksonville civil rights history, and listed the Clara White Mission among its key landmarks with the Ritz Theatre and Museum, Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing Park, Brewster Hospital, Old Stanton High School and Broad Street (City Council task force report). The report adds that LaVilla's historic shotgun houses received City of Jacksonville historic designation in 2013.

Her papers are in the University of North Florida's Special Collections and University Archives, whose White collection holds more than one thousand items including her personal papers, letters, documents, notes and memorabilia (UNF Digital Commons).

The collection is catalogued under her full name, with a finding aid and subject index online. The State Archives of Florida hold catalogued Jacksonville photographs of her, including RC13246 and PR00852, which Florida Memory offers to download or order (Florida Memory).

Two details differ between Jacksonville sources. The first is the mission's founding, 1904 in the mission's own account and the City Council task force timeline, and the 1930s in the state records (Clara White Mission; task force report; Hall of Fame). The second is the nursing home: the Hall of Fame dates it to 1967, while the mission's history says that at 89 she initiated a 125 bed facility, without giving a year (Clara White Mission).