Who is Michael Gladden Jr.?
Grocer. Guardian. Changemaker.
Michael Gladden Jr. was born on December 23rd, 1899, in Charleston, South Carolina. His parents were Michael Gladden Sr. (1876-1924) and Elizabeth “Bessie” Gladden (1876-1961). His brother, William Gladden Sr., was born four years later in 1903. The Gladden family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, before being invited to live in Mead’s Bottom by Sarah Mead, the legendary entrepreneur and formerly enslaved woman who built a legacy of Black homesteads. Michael and his brother William saved up to study at Savannah's Georgia State, which housed a trade school for Black Americans. William Gladden Sr. would go on to own and operate Gladden’s Shoe Hospital back in Apopka’s Black business district. Michael Gladden Jr. went on to enroll at Morehouse College to fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor. Michael’s studies were halted in 1924 when Michael Gladden Sr. was murdered. Michael Gladden Jr. left Morehouse for good and returned to Apopka to take over his father’s grocery store, M. Gladden Staple and Fancy Groceries, formerly located on Ninth Street.
From the beginning of his career at M. Gladden Staple and Fancy Groceries, Michael Gladden Jr. proved to be no mere grocer, but a community change-maker active in the fight for racial equality and a safekeeper of material, social, and cultural means. Michael Gladden Jr. most notably established the first Black Boy Scouts troop in Apopka, served as the president of the Apopka Negro Business League, was an active member of the Black Apopka Cemetery Committee, and co-founded Washington Shores, Shores Savings & Loan Bank in Orlando. Once stable in his business, he would eventually earn his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the historic Bethune-Cookman University.
Photograph: Michael Gladden Jr. and Joseph Cauley
inside M. Gladden Staple and Fancy Groceries, c. 1924.
Photograph: Michael Gladden Jr.
standing next to his car, c. 1950
Within the quiet confines of his storefront, Michael Gladden Jr. quietly served as the trusted banker and safekeeper for Apopka’s Black community. Behind the scenes, he used his own store’s vault to provide a secure place for Black customers, family members, and prominent locals to store their hard-earned cash when few financial institutions would serve them during the Jim Crow era. Michael Gladden Jr.'s surviving store receipts and account books, specifically marked for safekeeping, single-handedly preserved the names of patrons otherwise lost to time. His status as a college-educated Black man only elevated his necessity within the mostly illiterate Black community of Jim-Crow-era Apopka, notably becoming the executor of citrus mogul George Oden’s estate after his death in 1939. Michael Gladden Jr.’s store and its vault not only acted as a grocer, but a bank of its own that Black residents could put their trust in.
Michael Gladden Jr. would operate M. Gladden Staple and Fancy Groceries, Gladden’s Coin Laundry & Dry Cleaning, and his orange groves for 50 years alongside his wife, renowned educator and beloved principal of Phyllis Wheatley High School, Marie Stapler Gladden. After a major heart attack and prolonged illness, Michael Gladden Jr. died at the age of 82 on April 17th, 1982. In his honor, Apopka’s historic Ninth Street was renamed to Michael Gladden Boulevard on November 28th, 1982. Michael Gladden Jr. will forever be remembered in Apopka as a beloved grocer, banker, safekeeper, and friend to all. Shortly before his death, he was famously quoted by Dick Burdette of the Orlando Sentinel as saying, “I think I'll leave things in a little better shape than when I came into this world.” Opportunity, change, and an ardent hope for a brighter future defined this remarkable man who selflessly devoted a lifetime of service to his community.