Spann, Tina

Born June 14, 1932 in rural Homerville, Georgia, the sixth child of Corine and Jesse B. Grover, Sr., a Baptist Preacher. . My mother died in 1936 and in 1938 my father moved the family to Jacksonville, Florida where I grew up. In my young childhood, 11 years old, I began singing gospel songs on church programs and soon progressed to concerts within the city as well as out of state, becoming the city's youngest and one of its leading gospel singers.

Before and during the civil rights movement I worked in the law office of Ernest D. Jackson, Sr., now deceased. I was one of only two Black leg...