One in a series on local judges.
by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
When the precocious Pauline Mackey was growing up in the fully integrated, mostly Jewish neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn in the late 1950s, she had no idea that 1,000 miles south, people might not want her to succeed just because she was black.
In fact, teachers in New York took special interest in the bright young student and did their best to help her learn. Her fourth grade teacher, Ida Troolis, pulled the child into her advanced class so that she could be exposed to a more rigorous curriculum, her dad would put his hand on top of the television to make sure it wasn’t warm during homework hours and her mom was always at PTA meetings. At her sixth grade graduation, Troolis gave a speech about one special little girl who had so much promise. She announced the first annual Ida Troolis Award for exceptional students and she gave it to the awe-struck Mackey.
“My parents believed in education and religion,” said the Duval County judge who goes by Drayton-Harris now. “We had church and family dinner every Sunday and because of the principles we were raised by, we all turned out to be pretty successful.”
Drayton-Harris’ parents grew up in Alabama but moved to Brooklyn to escape racism and pursue better opportunities. Her dad worked as a janitor and managed the apartment building where they lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
It was when her father, wanting to be a property owner, moved the family back to the South and bought five acres in Lafayette, Ala. in 1963, that the judge-to-be noticed that in some places blacks weren’t always given the opportunity to be exceptional students.
“We’re talking about Alabama in 1963,” said Drayton-Harris. “Let’s just say, things were different.”
There were two schools in Lafayette where the Mackey’s could send their children — the white one or the black one. The cousins all went to Philips Junior High, the black one, and so the Mackey children went there, too. Unlike the schools in Brooklyn, and most of the white schools in Alabama, Philips had no equipment in the science labs, no gas to run the Bunsen burners and expectations were pretty low — most students would go to work in the mill downtown. Because of emerging state laws about ending segregation, the teachers were both white and black. Drayton-Harris was quickly nicknamed “The Professor.”
“The white teachers definitely didn’t want to be there,” she said. “And since I was blowing the curve, some of the students didn’t want me to be there.”
But the Mackey children were raising the bar and nobody could get too upset about that.
At her next stop, Five Points High School, no after-school activities, except basketball, were allowed for black students and teachers would crack jokes about blacks and Jews. Yet despite everything working against her, the traditionally white, newly integrated high school provided another platform for Drayton-Harris to shine. She became the salutatorian because “no black student was going to be valedictorian.” She was given a speech to read, but she hated it.
“It was about homing pigeons or innate abilities or something,” she said. “So I wrote a new speech.”
But as she ascended to the podium on graduation day, somebody opened a door behind the stage and the wind blew her note cards all over the floor. She spoke from her heart that day about believing in yourself, overcoming obstacles and believing in God. The first integrated class to graduate from Five Points High School gave Drayton-Harris a standing ovation.
Not surprisingly, Drayton-Harris believes in justice for everybody. She said that the people who stand before her in county court aren’t always that sophisticated but they all have a story. She makes sure that every litigant walks out the door understanding why she ruled the way she did.
Drayton-Harris attended the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and earned a master’s degree in special education from the University of Alabama. It was a professor there who told Drayton-Harris that she should go to law school.
“But I loved special ed,” said Drayton-Harris said. “And I was really enjoying helping mentally retarded adults as director of the Shelby County Day Treatment Center.”
Her first husband, Terrance Ingraham, an optometrist, joined the service and they moved Ft. Stewart, Ga. It was while Drayton-Harris was teaching special education in Hinesville, Ga. that she decided to go to law school.
What motivated Drayton-Harris was actually a desire to lobby for education reform for the mentally handicapped. She started at Suffolk Law School in Boston and finished at the University of Florida because her husband was working for Johnson & Johnson in Jacksonville. She commuted to Gainesville from Mandarin, which took a toll on her marriage.
She was hired by Ed Austin to work in the State Attorney’s Office special prosecution and she and Judge Mac Mathis worked together in the consumer affairs office. She later became a legal advisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for seven-and-a-half years before going into private practice for two years, handling family law and criminal cases. Drayton-Harris was appointed to the county bench by Gov. Lawton Chiles in 1998.
In Drayton-Harris’ newly renovated office on the third floor of the Duval County Courthouse, a portrait of her great grandmother hangs on one wall and a portrait of her great grandfather hangs on the opposite wall. They were both born in 1860 and were about six years old when slavery was abolished. To Drayton-Harris, a constant reminder of the past is a constant reminder to do more, to do better, that life can be a struggle, but that success can be achieved. She calls herself a student of history.
“I am what I am because of their sacrifice,” she said. “My dad’s family were all sharecroppers and they taught their children — my parents — to believe in education.” Drayton-Harris has four sisters: a nurse, a teacher, an electrical engineer and an accountant. Her brother is a successful businessman in New Jersey.
“We all support each other and encourage each other’s children.” she said. Her own children, Teresa, Paul and Elizabeth are all, she said, “gifted.” Her husband, Earl Harris, is the fitness and sports director.
Drayton-Harris is active in the Bethel Baptist Institutional Church where she sings in the chorus. Her father, Paul Mackey, held the bible when Drayton-Harris was sworn in as judge in 1998, a confirmation of Drayton-Harris’ top three priorities: God, family, and work.