Brooks Park, formerly Webster Park, June 10, 2025 | Robert Meyerowitz, LkldNow
2-minute read

She’s been called the Rosa Parks of Lakeland. And 25 years after her death, Nellie Madalynne Brooks is getting her flowers.

The city of Lakeland is changing Webster Park to make it her namesake.

Members of the Lakeland Chapter of the NAACP, including Brooks’s daughter, Beverly Boatwright, and members of the Webster Park South Neighborhood Association proposed the name-change during the city commission meeting on April 21.

On May 5, commissioners voted quickly and unanimously to do it.

Who was Nellie Brooks? She was a preacher’s daughter, born in 1922. She grew up in Miami, moved to Lakeland as a teenager and became a cosmetologist and owned a hat shop.

It was through her activism and mothering that she made her name.

Tiger Willie Horton looked up to her. We took a closer look at Brooks’s life here.

“Nellie Brooks May Finally Get Her Due.”

Nellie Brooks | Courtesy of City of Lakeland

The city on Tuesday announced that the park would be rededicated this Saturday, June 14, at 9 a.m.

“Renaming the park in honor of Madalynne Brooks is a tribute to her extraordinary courage, steadfast pursuit of justice, and enduring impact on our community,” Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz said in the Tuesday city news release.

“Her leadership was instrumental in the integration of Lakeland General Hospital, downtown lunch counters and the Polk Theatre,” Mutz noted.

Brooks Park, formerly Webster Park, June 10, 2025 — the city has already changed the signs ahead of the formal change at the park on Saturday, June 14, at 9 a.m. | Robert Meyerowitz, LkldNow

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Robert Meyerowitz has been a reporter, editor and foreign correspondent. He covered Central America and the Middle East, he was the cofounder and editor of the Anchorage Press in Alaska, and he taught journalism at the University of Alaska. He comes to Lakeland from Park City, Utah, where he edited The Park Record.

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  2. So sad that the Webster family has been left with zero name. Not sure why they got kicked out and another person was added. Doug Wimberly

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