Jake is Brentwood. Her hardscrabble city history. The home she provides the people dreaming of better days. Toby’s, Cotton’s and Jackie’s, and a cluttered conference room court inside Gateway Chemicals where city politicians and old pals talked about fishing, football and hunting while planning ways to make a better Jacksonville.
Jake is Westside. Her sturdy blue-collar work ethic and proud heritage of military service. Hunting and fishing at J.B. Coxwell's Thousand Oaks with lifelong friends. Vastly different, but able to sit alongside the business, civic and cultural leaders and work to improve the city.
Jake is Southside. A bustling, bold, business-minded salesman. Always building partnerships and reaching for greater things. Southpoint, J. Turner Butler Blvd., and Mayo Clinic. Listening to entrepreneurs with big ideas, then lean in, put his hand firmly on your arm and refuse to take "no" for an answer.
Jake is Downtown. Her menagerie of politics, commerce and culture. Inspiring venues for sport and spirituality. The iconic representation of our city, reaching out across the shimmering St. Johns River he loved to unite all of Jacksonville’s diverse communities.
It’s often been said that Jake is Jacksonville.
In reality, Jake just personified all those things that collectively make our city what it is: its love, its kindness, its heart, its passion and its people.
Former two-term Jacksonville Mayor Jake Maurice Godbold passed away January 23rd at the age of 86. Jake – along with his siblings Fay, Charlene and Len – were born during the Great Depression and raised on Jacksonville’s Northside by his parents, Charles and Irene Godbold. Jake served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict and was elected to serve on the Jacksonville City Council from 1967 until 1979, serving twice as council president. He was also elected twice to serve as Jacksonville’s mayor from 1979 until 1987.
During his two decades of elected public service, Jake led an unprecedented transformation of Jacksonville by championing major projects that included building the Jacksonville Landing, reviving the old Union Terminal into the Prime Osborne Convention Center, sparking and fostering Jacksonville’s successful pursuit of an NFL franchise, launching the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, saving and restoring the Florida Theatre, attracting Mayo Clinic to locate here, and building the Southbank Riverwalk among many, many others.
Despite his incredible list of capital construction achievements as mayor, Jake will likely be most remembered as a champion for Jacksonville’s people, particularly its seniors and minorities. As Jake nervously prepared for one his first important campaign speeches, close friend Lou Frost told him, “These are your people. They belong to you.” It was a message Jake said guided his constant focus on the people he represented during his public service career.
Jake’s biographer and longtime friend Mike Tolbert wrote that he had a lifelong affinity for underdogs and the underprivileged. Having grown up in a Northside public housing project, and begun his career selling insurance in that area, the trust and bond that Jake enjoyed with Jacksonville’s minority community was an essential part of his public and private character. The first election he won was to represent the blue collar and minority neighborhoods of Panama Park and North Shore. As mayor, Jake pushed and passed the city’s first minority business set-aside program despite tremendous pressure from his many including some of his close friends and supporters.
His passion for helping the elderly shone famously in the time and energy he dedicated to his Mayor’s Older Buddies (M.O.B.) program, as well as his administration’s support for the city’s senior centers.
Near the end of his public service, Godbold told a gathering of supporters that he wanted to be remembered not for capital projects, but rather for his compassion, and contributions he made to the human spirit. “I want to be remembered for my ability to bring together Jews and Arabs, blacks and whites, the elderly and the young,” he said.
That sentiment traces back to a trip Jake took to Washington D.C. early in his first term as mayor. There he visited the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Walking in, Jake paused to read an inscription on the wall outside the Grand Foyer. He wrote down the quote and on returning home he put it in a frame on his desk. He often repeated the Kennedy quote throughout his life, and asked that when he’s laid to rest, the words be carved on his headstone.
“I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities we, too, will be remembered not for the victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.”
Jake M. Godbold was also the loving patriarch to his family. He is predeceased by his father Charles Benjamin Godbold II, mother Irene Godbold, and wife Jean Jenkins Godbold. He’s survived by his son Charles Benjamin “Ben” Godbold III, granddaughters Morgan Godbold, Matilda Godbold and their mother Elizabeth “Beth” Wiggins. Sisters Fay Parker (Jim), Charlene Cunard-Lynn (James Hap) and brother Len Godbold (Becky) and many nieces, nephews and cousins.
A public Celebration of Life will be held on Thursday, February 20th, 2020 at 10 a.m. at the Prime F. Osborn Convention Center as a tribute to his service and contributions to our city.
In lieu of flowers, Jake’s family ask that contributions be made to two local charities he cared for deeply: Toys for Tots and Hubbard House.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.18