Yvonne Hinson-Rawls loves to stand at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park and admire the beauty of the land in her district.
The incumbent District 1 candidate has pastel-colored renderings of the Paynes Prairie Sheetflow Restoration Project hung on the wall in her office at City Hall.
From that desk, she can see West University Avenue, which extends out to Waldo Road. Two blocks south of Waldo Road, she lives in her district — she’s a neighbor to her constituents.
Now, Hinson-Rawls wants to represent them in the City Commission again.
She began her political career at Lincoln High School when she ran for Student Government. Her family, who is helping her campaign now, also backed her then.
“She would run for something, and we would sell soda bottles and raise money for her,” said Marilyn Mack, her youngest sister. They would also collect sticks from the woods around their house for their grandmother to make caramel apples to sell.
Hinson-Rawls said she gravitated toward politics during the 2008 Obama campaign. So she left to recruit volunteers in South Carolina. From that Friday to the next, a team of 15 volunteers grew to 5,000.
“I walked the streets in the rain, in the cold,” she said. “Me and a white guy because he remembered the civil rights era, and he said, ‘We need a black and white team.’”
Hinson-Rawls also vividly remembers the civil rights era.
While she was growing up in Gainesville, times were changing. She remembers the black community having its own swimming pool, its own tennis courts and its own library.
“Gainesville was segregated but very, very harmonious,” she said.
While she was in junior high, right around Martin Luther King Jr.’s rise and the Selma to Montgomery march, she worked with her uncle in a chapter of the NAACP he started.
Hinson-Rawls’ long history of work toward racial equality plays out in her platform: What she wants most is equality for everyone.
Marriage equality, gender equality, income equality, education equality — working for District 1 since 2012 has shown her inequality is an issue her district still faces.
One way she has promoted reaching an equal standard of living is through three successful job fairs.
The people she came across at the job fairs were reminiscent of her mom, who, as a single mom, worked multiple jobs to provide a good life for her six children.
“I thought, the only way to a better life is a better job, not a second job,” she said. “We need people trained to get higher wages — higher paying jobs.”
“We are all somebody, and we all deserve a piece of the pie,” she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 3/13/2015]
J. Wayne Reitz Union
655 Reitz Union Drive, UF Campus, Gainesville, FL 32611
Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
315 Hull Road, UF Campus, Gainesville, FL 32611
Florida Museum of Natural History
3215 Hull Road, UF Campus, Gainesville, FL 32611
SFC Center for Innovation & Economic Development
530 W. University Ave., Gainesville, FL 32601
Thelma Boltin Activity Center
516 NE Second Ave., Gainesville, FL 32601
Doyle Conner Building
1911 SW 34th St., Gainesville, FL 32614
Paramount Plaza Hotel
2900 SW 13th St., Gainesville, FL 32608
Early voting is through Saturday at:
Cone Park Library
Millhopper Branch Library
Supervisor of Elections Office
Yvonne Hinson-Rawls is the incumbent District 1 candidate for Gainesville City Commission.
