In 1993, the City of Jacksonville had the Clara White Mission in its crosshairs. Mayor Ed Austin’s River City Renaissance plan sought to demolish the Clara White Mission along with the nearly 50 square blocks of it bulldozed, but a young leader named Ju’Coby Pittman, the Mission’s fourth president, got in the way. Today, the , located at 613 West Ashley Street in the heart of LaVilla, is 111 years old. Its founder, , ran the Mission for 70 years. Along the way, people compared her to Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Jane Addams and Jesus. She wasn’t quite five feet tall, …
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