Last month Mount Olive Baptist Church honored one of their most esteemed members in attorney Theodore Taylor as part of a Black History Month celebration within the church’s community.
Born in Ocala, Taylor graduated high school in 1971 before attending and graduating Magna Cum Laude from Florida A&M University in 1975. From FAMU, Taylor attended law school at the University of Florida where he earned his Juris Doctor degree in December of 1977 before immediately beginning his career in January of 1978.
After moving to Tampa, he struggled finding work and opened his own practice out of an apartment in Lutz. And following the suggestion of a friend whose in-laws lived in the area, Taylor ultimately made a move to the eastern side of Hillsborough County in March of 1982 that would see him become the first African American attorney to open a law office in Plant City.
Early in his career he was inspired by the illustrious career of James Redman. Redman, a Plant City High School graduate, began practicing law in 1958. Throughout his career as an attorney, Redman would serve two years in the Air Force, six years as an associate judge in Plant City and 13 years in the Florida House of Representatives, but what Taylor always remembered about Redman was how early he would arrive to work each day.
“When I first moved to Plant City my office was on Reynolds Street and every morning Mr. Redman would walk past my office,” Taylor said. “A couple of times when I got in early, I would notice that he would always come in early. So I said that I’d do like Mr. Redman, I’ll come in early and get my work done because the people loved him, his clients loved him. So I realized that a way to get my clients to love me too was through the inspiration of Mr. Redman. If I get to work early and do the best for the clients, the rest will all take care of itself after that. And over the years, it did. I started in Plant City in 1982 and once I got to know Mr. Redman and saw how he did things, it inspired me.”
For 42 years Taylor practiced law in Plant City, proudly thanking God for allowing him to continue serving his community for so long, noting that he never missed even a single day of work due to being sick throughout his career, missing only a few days in 2015 after breaking his ankle. And Taylor points to the final two years of his practice as the most enjoyable because he would bring his family’s rescue dog Dream to work with him every day— well, almost every day, because Dream doesn’t work on Fridays.
In addition to his professional work, Taylor remains a devoted member of Mount Olive Baptist Church, continually striving for perfect attendance in church as he always did with work and school. These efforts were another reason Taylor says that he liked to begin his day early, affording him the time to complete his Sunday school planning and Bible study each day in addition to his work. At Mount Olive, Taylor continues to serve as an usher, a Sunday school leader and a leader of the church’s Disciple Makers class — a class in which he leads other members to discipleship as well as developing future Sunday school leaders. Additionally, Taylor assists Pastor Antonio Wilkerson with Bible Study and is the lone living organizer from Mount Olive’s Hot Lunch Ministry, a service in which volunteer members work to feed community members in need on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week.
“I’ve only been a pastor here for six years and Brother Ted has been very influential in my life in the time that I’ve been here, as well as in the community,” Wilkerson said. “He’s instrumental in our Hot Meal Ministry and he’s very active with that, making sure that those who are less fortunate than we are can go and get a hot meal at least twice per week. Before he was retired he would walk here from his law office just to be a part of it, he would do bible study with them and he would walk back. Rain, sleet, cold, whatever it was, he would make that sacrifice to come over here and then go back to his practice.”
Taylor was honored at Mount Olive for his long and historic law career as well as his work with Mount Olive and in the community. And while the church held several activities throughout February that shined a light on Black History Month, fellow Mount Olive member Terrie Stracham felt that Taylor was more than deserving of special recognition in the wake of his retirement for the multitude of ways he has impacted — and continues to impact — so many within the Plant City community.
“This event was in recognition of Plant City’s first black attorney, Ted Taylor,” Stracham said. “He’s a member of our church and we just wanted to acknowledge him and all of his years of service both in our community and in our church today. Not only has he served as an attorney but he serves with our homeless mission, he’s a Sunday school teacher, he’s everything. He’s dedicated and he shows his work through that dedication.”