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Gifford Nei rhborhood Plan 2014 town. You could only walk on the sidewalk if no white men were around; otherwise you walked in the street. We were allowed to go to the movie theater at night, but we had to enter from a back alley and sit upstairs." rA The late J. Ralph Lundy, a well known and respected activist for the black community described some of the inconveniences for blacks in the years before desegregation. "We not only had separate schools, but blacks weren't allowed on public beaches. We had separate water fountains and bathrooms, even a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Ladies could not try on clothes in Vero Beach stores and seating at Dodgertown was also segregated until 1963,years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier." Separate but equal did not apply to how the Indian River County Sheriffs Department treated blacks, particularly during the term of Sheriff L.B. Osteen. According the many accounts, in the middle 1940s to 1950s blacks were often brutally beaten by Osteen and deputies for even minor traffic violations. Blacks were often sentenced to prison over minor violations. Most did not have legal representation facing an all white jury. Anna Lane, 92, has lived in Gifford since 1929. "We were all poor but accepted our lives and made the best of them. However, we were all afraid of Sheriff Osteen. He was so mean to black folks. When he walked into a place, everyone got quiet. When he was killed in a car accident, people were so relieved." Victor Hart, Sr. is a well know Gifford community leader and civil rights activist. Now age 81, Hart moved to Gifford from the Bahamas in 1952. "I thought I was coming to live in Vero Beach, but I was told that colored people live in Gifford. Back in Nassau, we didn't use terms like `black' or `colored.' I could go into any restaurant or hotel. I was Mr. Victor Hart. Here I was told where to live and eat, could only work as a laborer and at age 37 people called me `boy.' I was not a boy—I was a man. "One night I was driving along U.S. 1 in Winter Beach where the elementary school used to be. I saw a big fire and said to the guy I was with, `Let's go see what's going on.' He said we shouldn't go there because that's where the Ku Klux Klan meets. I said what are they and he said, `If you are a negro and go there, they will lynch you." Hart would soon start a local chapter of the NAACP. He led demonstrations in front of Vero Beach businesses. He, Ralph Lundy and others started the Gifford Progressive Civic League in 1961. Their efforts slowly paid off. One example is that Gifford did not have water or sewer until the mid-70s, nor did they have paved streets, streetlights and stop signs. According to Victor Hart, he and Ralph Lundy took a jug of water to a county commission meeting and said to the commissioners, "Would you drink this?" They said of course not, nobody would. Hart said, "Yes sir, someone would—the people of Gifford." Another Gifford activist, Reverend Leon Young, said, "In 1974 I called CBS in New York and asked them to send someone down to do a documentary on our water situation. They did and put the report on CBS Evening News. It turns out that back in 1971 the state had offered Indian River County$19 million to put in central water and sewer for the whole county and the county turned it down." The Gifford water situation was reported by Morton Dean on the CBS Evening News on Sunday, July 24, 1977 and county water became a reality within the next year. Community Development Indian River County 106