[With today’s news, it’s with a heavy heart I write this. My deepest sympathies to her family.]

“Present!”

From the first call of the roll Tampa City Council member Gwen Henderson wasn’t going to let us forget she was a teacher. Everyone else is just “here”, she was present. A proud educator and member of the teacher’s union, she relied on those traits to help her gain her footing on council. When you’re elected to city council, it doesn’t come with a manual. Especially for just the third Black woman ever to serve on Tampa City Council and only the 16th woman in the city’s history.

As she began to settle in she did her best to navigate the priorities of all of her constituents, sometimes upsetting the traditional East Tampa part of District 5. District 5 is not what it was when the city was finally split into 4 districts in 1987. Council member Miranda is famous for saying “we used to roll up the sidewalks downtown at 5 o’clock.” Ybor was a shell of its hey day, yet to be redeveloped. District 5 was primarily a poor, neglected part of town folks displaced by the urban renewal of the 60s and 70s. The Black community. Today that district has a much more diverse constituency and navigating the two ends of the spectrum is a challenge.

She didn’t let that deter her. Regardless of what she thought she was getting into when she decided to run, she committed to using her lived experience to represent everyone. That didn’t mean she would shy away from the topic of race. On several occasions she spoke frankly about what her experience has been growing up in this city and learning its history as a Black woman. Teachable moments.

She was very proud of being Chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee. Before she was on payroll as a city council member, she was a city employee in the Parks and Recreation department before college. That all these years later she would chair the committee for that department meant something to her, and should mean something to all of us. That’s the kind of city we need to continue striving to build.

Council member Henderson was a teacher first, and from the dais made it clear she wanted to learn from the last experience. Be it a small win, or a big mistake, the lesson was to learn and improve. May that be her lasting legacy for the city, to continue to learn from our mistakes and keep getting better. To be present.