Camilla Perkins Thompson Jax native, noted historian and retired educator with a career spanning 37 years transitioned this week after a brief illness at the age of 99.
She graduated from Stanton Senior High School in 1939. In 1943, Thompson received her B.S. degree in chemistry from Florida A&M University.
In 1974, she received her M.S. degree with a focus on the teaching of chemistry and physics from the University of North Florida. Thompson was married to Capers M. Thompson and they had three children Muriel, Michael (deceased), and Reginald, born between 1947 and 1953.
In the community she served as a volunteer and docent with the Ritz Theatre and LaVilla Museum. Mrs. Thompson was a member of the Clara White Mission and Jacksonville Historical Society Board of Directors and was project director for the Eartha M. White Art & Historical Resources Center. She wass a diamond member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority where she served as tour guide for Gamma Rho Omega Chapter tour of Jacksonville Black Historical Sites.
Mrs. Thompson was a lifelong member of Bethel Baptist Institutional Church, where she served as chairman of the history archives, museum ministry and co-church school teacher. She was also an active member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALAH). She joined her lifelong friends Charlotte Stewart and Lydia Wooden for the “Circle of Three. The three of them frequently gave a traveling Black history seminar to all who were interested.
Mrs. Thompson served as the historian for the Jacksonville Free Press. She wrote a history column focusing on local Black history for the publication for over twenty years. She leaves to mourn a daughter (Muriel), and son (Reginald), and host of family and friends among her Free Press family.
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