Women's History Month: South Florida's Athalie Range broke barriers, set standards
MIAMI - Patrick Range II proudly points out his grandmother's picture with President Jimmy Carter.
Carter had appointed Athalie Range to the National Railroad Passenger Commission.
In the 1940s, Range cleaned Railroad passenger cars.
In the 1970s, she was on the commission that ran the nation's railroads.
A big but not surprising leap for the diminutive, always-determined woman who was born in Key West.
"I still marvel that at no more than five foot two inches, being a black or colored woman as she was defined to at that me to accomplish those things in segregation days to be the first in several different categories," Patrick Range II said.
For sure a pioneer Miami business person, her presence is prominent on the Range funeral home website.
In 1960, she ran the business after the death of her husband Oscar Range by obtaining her embalmer and funeral director certification so that she could operate the funeral home.
Her son, Patrick Range told CBSMiami, "In her mind, if she decided that this is what was necessary to accomplish what she wanted to do she would figure out a way to do it." And do it she did.
The Range funeral home is a South Florida institution, but there is much more as her grandson recounts, "becoming the first Black female commissioner, first Black and female to head a state department."
In 1971, Florida Governor Ruben Askew appointed Athalie Range Secretary of the Department of Community Affairs.
In the 1960s, Range was appointed and later elected to the Miami City Commission.
She led the fight for equal school facilities for Black students and battled for better garbage and sanitation service for Black neighborhoods.
Founding Chairman of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, the only "colored" beach in Miami-Dade County.
Patrick Range II said, "Everything she did was about somebody else, it was not about her and that helped her and helped people understand and appreciate her for more than just a little Black woman."
A friend of presidents and a devoted Catholic, Range had a deep sense of justice.
Patrick Range II told us, "She also understood it was segregation time and people were not equal even though they should be."
In 1989, when there was a vacancy on the Miami City Commission, it was Athalie Range that once again got the appointment.
Range, the little woman with the big smile who relatives say could light up a room just by walking in passed away in 2006.
