Dr. Tee S. Greer, Jr.

HONORABLE CARRIE P. MEEK

of Florida in the House of Representatives

Tuesday, March 18, 1997

Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is a distinct honor and privilege to pay tribute to one of Miami’s truly great heroes, Dr. Tee S. Greer, Jr. His untimely demise from cancer last Thursday, March 13, 1997, leaves a deep void in our community. Dr. Greer, 60, represented the best and the noblest of our community. Coming from a deeply rooted and respected family of educators, his forbears helped build the railroad that came to Miami in the late 1890’s.

He was married to schoolteacher Billie Greer, the great-niece of William Brewer who succeeded the renowned Carter G. Woodson, editor of the Journal of Negro History. Graduating from Miami-Overtown’s historic Booker T. Washington High School in 1954, he served as its irrepressible student-body president. His classmates looked up to him
as a natural-born leader, a gentleman, and a motivator par excellence. A prominent member of Dade County’s United Way, he also belonged to Omega Psi Phi and Sigma Pi Phi, the oldest black fraternity in the Nation. He also exercised a steady hand over Miami’s King of Clubs, the Nation’s premiere black civic organization, by helping the youth
achieve through academic excellence and scholarships. This role has indeed turned him into a role model for generations of our Dade County youth.

A meticulous father and a firm believer in the centrality of God in his family, he mandated strict attendance at Sunday dinners for his four children, now adults–Anita Greer-Dixon, Tee Greer III, Florence, and Frederick Greer. He was wont to tell his boyhood story of how he constructed a go-cart for the annual Boy Scout race, out of the bike he
used on his daily paper route. He won the race against the more expensive store-bought go-carts. The day after the race he dismantled
his “chariot” and merrily went on his paper route.

His daughter Florence, who earned two master’s degrees, remembered that “. . . our dad taught us that we may have limited resources, but
we should use what God gave us to get the job done.” He was a math major from Atlanta’s Morehouse College and entertained dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer. He turned to teaching, however, when he found out that upon graduation from college the only job he could find in the South in the 1950’s was that of a truck driver.

All in Dade County can vividly recall that in the early 1980’s, he spearheaded a team from the Dade County public schools to go to Washington, DC to secure funding to help the county government deal with the influx of thousands of refugees who came to Miami from Cuba’s
port of Mariel.

Dr. Greer, Junior, fully lived up to his stewardship as a genuine educator. His standards for learning and achievement, both low-key and laid-back but at the same time stern and consistent, won him the accolades of the academic community, particularly the National Alliance of Black School Educators. The Alliance saw fit to create a scholarship in his name for local high-achieving students who plan to be math and science majors.

His countless successes in educating many a wayward inner-city youth have become legendary. He gained the confidence of countless parents who saw in him as the no-nonsense educator, entrusting him with the future of their children and confident that they too would learn from him the tenets of scholarship and the pursuit of academic excellence under a rigorous discipline. His approach to educating the inner-city youth emphasized utmost personal responsibility. In times of crises
crowding the school system’s agenda, his forthright guidance and counsel was one that verged on his faith in God and faith in one’s ability to survive the vicissitudes of life.

Our community was deeply touched and comforted by his undaunted leadership, kindly compassion, and personal warmth. As a deacon at historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Miami’s Overtown community, he preached and lived by the adage that, with God’s help, the quest for personal integrity, academic excellence, and professional achievement
is not beyond the reach of those who are willing to dare the impossible.

Having earned a doctorate in education, he ascended up the ranks and was appointed a two-time interim superintendent. He was passed over a couple of times in being named permanently to the helm of the Dade County public schools, the Nation’s fourth largest school system. Still in all, Dr. Greer maintained his equanimity and dignity throughout this ordeal, rededicating himself to the educational well-being of the thousands of young boys and girls in the school system. In so doing he rightfully earned the deepest respect and admiration of his colleagues and the leadership of Dade County.

This is the great legacy Dr. Tee S. Greer, Jr., has bequeathed to our community. I am greatly privileged to have earned his friendship and to have been given the opportunity to   live by his noble credo.