Gainesville civil rights leader Willie Faye Bush dies at age 90

A local civil rights leader died Friday at the age of 90. 

 

Willie Faye Bush, a longtime leader of the Newtown Florist Club, passed away in her sleep, according to an obituary from Wimberly Funeral Home in Gainesville. 

 

The Gainesville-based non-profit has advocated for community health, equitable housing, youth development and social and environmental justice since its formal establishment in 1950.  

 

Community representative Martha Randolph shared her memories of Bush, who served as the club’s Executive Director beginning in the early seventies. 

 

“[Bush] was the type of person that saw things that needed to get done, the injustice or things that needed to be improved,” Randolph recalled. “And she was one of those people that went after whatever she decided to go for.”  

 

Bush’s advocacy  for her community included  working with city leaders to transform the former E.E. Butler High School into the Butler Center, the renaming of MLK Jr. Blvd., and the renaming of the Ruby Wilkins Park in Gainesville. Bush also organized  the club’s annual Martin Luther King Jr.  Day Marches and created youth-oriented programs, such as the Girls Leadership Program and the Bright Teens United for a Future. 

 

Community member Angela Middleton said she will remember Bush for her ability to peacefully promote social justice. 

 

“I've always admired Miss Faye Bush, " Middleton said. “ Not only was she over the Newtown Florist  Club, but she was my church member, and so I remember her being the voice of inspiration in the church, the voice of calmness, but a voice of action…her group would not be a group of complaining about a problem, but it'd be a group of telling a story, being able to document a story through others that thought like them.” 

 

Additionally, Bush was presented with the Liberty Bell Award, which is presented to a nonlawyer who promotes law and education of law. The Gainesville City Council also recently voted to rename the roadway from McDonald St. to Dunbar St. as Willie Fay Bush St.