Slide 1

Slide 2 1738: The Spanish established Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose), the first free African community in America, to defend against the British. Approximately 100 Africans lived at Fort Mose, forming more than 20 households. Slide 3 In 1728, helping to defend the Northern Florida Frontier from English and Native American raids, the Black Militia gained respect and honor. 1739: When the largest slave uprising in the history of North America took place near Charleston, SC, the Spanish were blamed. 1740: The British attacked St. Augustine under General George Oglethorpe. Fort Mose was captured. Slide 4 1752: Spaniards rebuilt Fort Mose. 1784: When the British evacuated Florida, Spanish colonists came pouring in. Escaped slaves came, trying to reach a place where their U.S. masters could not reach them. 1787: More than half of the plantations in Florida had fewer than four slaves. Slide 5 Detail from The Death of Major Pierson,1782- 84, by John Singleton Copley Tate Gallery. A new influx of freedom- seeking blacks reached Florida during the American Revolution (1775- 1783) American slaves had agreed to fight for the British in exchange for liberty. (Florida remained under British control throughout the conflict.) During the Revolution, hundreds of black refugees forged new ties to Seminole Indians in Florida, many of whom also fought as British allies. Slide 6 Runaway slaves took shelter with the Seminoles Sometimes called Maroons, the ex-slaves developed a distinct culture, but adopted Seminole ways of life and clothing They had a patron-client relationship with Seminoles with whom they raided slave plantations and recruited more runaway slaves to Florida Slide 7 1821-45: Territorial status: white Floridians were concentrating on developing the territory and gaining statehood. Floridas population had reached 55,000 people, with African American slaves making up almost one-half of the population. 1821: Andrew Jackson Allen, one of the earliest performers in America, sang a "Negro dialect" song on the Pensacola stage in blackface. Slide 8 1845: Florida entered the Union as a slave state, balancing the free state status of Iowa 1851: Steven Foster's song, "Old Folks at Home," glorifying plantation life, was written. It was adopted as the official state song by the Florida state legislature in 1935. Slide 9 1861: The independent "nation of Florida" withdrew from the American Union. 1861: In Pensacola the Army of the Confederate States of America took Ft. Pickens. Florida provided an estimated 15,000 troops and significant amounts of supplies including salt, beef, pork, and cottonto the Confederacy, but more than 2,000 Floridians, both African American and white, joined the Union army. Key West and Fort Meyers remained under Union control throughout the war. Slide 10 1803: Denmark abolishes the slave trade. 1807: Britain abolishes the slave trade. 1817: France abolishes the slave trade. 1818: Holland abolishes the slave trade. 1820: Spain abolishes the slave trade 1824: Sweden abolishes the slave trade. 1833: Slavery itself is finally abolished in the British colonies. 1833: Slavery is abolished in the West Indies. 1834: Slavery ends in the Bahaman Islands. 1835: On June 25, Queen Maria Cristina abolished the slave trade to Spanish colonies. 1848: Slavery is abolished in the French colonies. 1863: African-Americans in Union-occupied areas became free citizens on New Year's Day with the Emancipation Proclamation. 1863: Slavery is abolished in the Dutch colonies. 1873: Slavery is abolished in the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico. 1880: Slavery is abolished in Cuba. Slide 11 Decline of Floridas plantation economy. 1870: Josiah T. Walls served as a state representative and senator and was Florida's first African-American in the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Gibbs filled the office of Secretary of State while fellow African-Americans throughout the state served as members of city councils. 1876: A School for African Americans was built in Tallahassee. 1877: Reconstruction ended and federal troops left Jim Crow Laws limited the rights and freedoms exercised by African-Americans. Jonathan Gibbs Slide 12 1882: The cigar industry in Tampa, Florida created a unique, multicultural, multiracial urban area. Afro-Cubans, Cuban-born whites and white political exiles from Spain immigrated to work in the cigar factories. 1887: Eatonville was the first black incorporated municipality in Florida. African American laborers built Floridas railroads and roads, tapped the turpentine and farmed the sugar-cane fields in the rapidly growing state. Slide 13 Slide 14 Both agriculture and tourism, before air-conditioning was commonplace, needed workers during the winter. Around 1890 blacks from the Bahamas began arriving in Floridas lower east coast for seasonal agricultural work. Between 1900 and 1920, 10,000 to 12,000about one-fifth of the Bahamian populationcame to Florida. By 1920 the foreign-born made up a quarter of Miamis population; Bahamian blacks comprised 16% of the citys entire population. Bahamian gathering in Coconut Grove Slide 15 Born in Jacksonville, FL Author, poet, Civil Rights activist Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man 1912 The Book of American Negro Poetry 1922 Lift Every Voice and Sing the Negro National Anthem First African American accepted to the Florida bar Prominent in Harlem Renaissance One of the first African-American professors at New York University Slide 16 Following World War I, Florida, experienced heightened racial tensions and anti-immigrant sentiments that led to lynchings and racial persecution. An election in 1920 in Ocoee in Orange County ended in a race riot and deaths. In 1923, the entire African- American town of Rosewood was set fire and residents killed by a white mob. Slide 17 A burning cabin near Rosewood, Florida, January 04, 1923 Slide 18 Born to former slaves in South Carolina After graduating from college and marrying, she founded a school for girls in Daytona Beach, which later merged with a boys school to become Bethune-Cookman College As a businesswoman, she was involved in insurance and housing development 1932: founded the National Council of Negro Women 1936: appointed by President Roosevelt as to serve as a director in the National Youth Administration and as special assistant to the Secretary of War during WWII Slide 19 Born in Green Cove Springs, FL Sculptor Educator: Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, Harlem. Students included: Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and Gwendolyn Knight. Another student was the sociologist Kenneth B. Clark, crucial to Brown vs. Board of Education case. The Harp, 1939. Augusta Savage. Cast Plaster. Slide 20 Anthropologist, folklorist, novelist and playwright Mules and Men, 1935 Tell My Horse, 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937 Grew up in Eatonville, FL First African-American graduate of Barnard College (Columbia U) Prominent in Harlem Renaissance Slide 21 World War II was the last conflict to countenance segregated military units. Florida in World War II became almost one big military post with 172 installations. African-Americans from less segregated regions of the U.S. faced typical Jim Crow rules while on duty in Florida. German prisoners of war could use facilities from which American blacks were banned. After the war, famous athletes, such as baseballs Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, encountered the same racial restrictions during spring training sessions in Florida. Slide 22 African-Americans began a voter registration campaign, but change was resisted violently. On Christmas Eve, 1950, Harry T. Moore, state leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and his wife were killed by a bomb beneath their bed because of his voter-registration activities. By the early 1960s blacks in Florida cities joined others throughout the south to protest segregation. In 1963 and 1964 Martin Luther King organized demonstrations in St. Augustine, then celebrating its 400 th anniversary of founding. Slide 23 1964: Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 1965: The Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Courts "one-man- one vote" ruling and related decisions brought externally imposed change to Floridas political and racial life. Although Brown vs, Board of Education negated the separate but equal doctrine in 1954, Florida schools did not desegregate until the late 1960s. Following the civil-rights legislation and court actions of the 1960s, African-Americans once again returned to elected positions. 1968 : the first African-American was elected to the Florida Legislature since Reconstruction. 1992 : the first African-Americans since Reconstruction were elected to represent Florida in the U.S. Congress. Slide 24 Group of African-American landscape painters who emerged in the 1950s in Fort Pierce led by Alfred Hair and Harold Newton Denied access to art galleries, they sold their paintings from the trunks of their cars Harold Newton Slide 25