Eatonville, founded in 1887 by former slaves, is the oldest existing Black municipality in the country and the birthplace of the celebrated novelist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. It’s situated in Orange County, which boasts a well-developed tourist economy, and is easily accessible through an extensive highway network.
On Tuesday, a state task force assessing possible sites for a proposed Florida Museum of Black History passed up a chance to place the institution in Eatonville in favor of St. Johns County, where Martin Luther King once rallied protests against segregation in the city of St. Augustine but where the site would require extensive development including roadbuilding.
The close vote followed intense lobbying by St. Augustine/St. Johns, which branched out to support from surrounding counties, including Flagler County, where Palm Coast and the School Board contributed letters of support. (See: “Flagler School Board Will Send Letter of Support for Locating Museum of Black History in St. Johns.”)
The 5-4 vote was hotly contested, with Bruce Antone — the Democratic state House member from Orange County who sponsored the legislation creating the museum — complaining that the panel hadn’t considered all of the angles, including how the museum would be marketed, the stories it would tell, and how it would generate income.
“We were supposed to be making a decision on a museum, and so we haven’t even talked about the content of the museum,” Antone said during the meeting. He is not a member of the task force but spoke during public comment.
“Now we just put a roadblock in place. Now we’re going to go another year or two doing nothing. This was a huge decision for the state of Florida. A huge decision, and I knew we had one chance to get this right, and I think today we blew it, and I know we blew it.”
Ultimately, task force chair Geraldine Thompson, a Democratic state senator from Orange County, couldn’t garner enough votes for Eatonville, which she’d been rooting for from early in the process.
The vote ratified an earlier ranking that favored the St. Johns site, ahead of Eatonville and Opa-Locka in Miami-Dade County. Opa-Locka is regarded as the first city in northern Miami-Dade to integrate and claims Helen Miller as the first Black woman mayor in the state.
Voting in the majority was Howard Holley, the only Flagler County resident on the panel–he was appointed by Rep. Paul Renner, the speaker of the house–and a steady supporter of what he prefers to call the St. Augustine/St. Johns site, though he stressed that “my first priority is to see the Florida Museum of Black History built. If that required compromising on location to do that I’m more than willing to do that. But I want to see it built. That’s sort of the way I approached it. Yes, I did give the vote to St. Augustine/St. Johns, I thought that was a major site for us, but if that hadn’t come up, I would have supported whatever one.”
Video: A Florida Memory documentary on the civil rights demonstrations of 1964 in St. Augustine. Caution: contains strong, offensive and tendentious language.
During a four-hour meeting, members of the task force argued over how the Eatonville and St. Johns sites could function in the long run without financial support from the Legislature and the process by which St. Johns got to the top. The factors members considered included the sites’ historical significance, the state of the regional economy, how many people live in the area, transportation infrastructure, availability of local funding matches, and partnerships for educational programming. (Watch the full meeting here.)
Once the group chose St. Johns, members debated whether they would launch a study into how to get the museum running. They didn’t decide, meaning more work lies ahead when the group meets again on June 5. The task force wants to meet twice in June, but the final meeting hasn’t been scheduled.
Undeveloped land
The group must deliver a report to Gov. Ron DeSantis and legislative leaders by the end of June, leaving a little over a month to finish this work. There’s no guarantee the museum will become a reality — the Legislature gets final say on whether to actually establish the museum and its location.
During the debate, Antone and other members of the public brought up concerns regarding the undeveloped parcel St. Johns pitched for the museum’s location. Eatonville planned to make 10 acres available in a mixed-use zone for the project. It was the only option connected to an interstate highway.
The Johns County plan assumes that Florida Memorial University, one of the state’s historically Black colleges and universities, would provide 17 of its 40 acres, located 2.5 miles from the center of Historic Downtown St. Augustine.
The meeting provided the public with its first chance to see specific comparisons between the St. Johns plan and those from Eatonville and Opa-Locka, including a study by Andrew Chin, an architecture and engineering professor at Florida A&M University.
“St. Johns County knows that change is coming,” he said. “I think the benefit of that space is that the land can be rezoned for the purposes and surrounding uses that would best-interest or best serve a museum.”
Chin acknowledged that planners would need to navigate multiple contingencies associated with the St. Johns site but added: “I think until we know that something can’t be built, I think we assume something can be built.”
Chin didn’t endorse any of the locations.
Criticism of the ranking
While Opa-Locka in theory remained a possibility during Tuesday’s meeting, none of the task force members advocated for that location. Instead, the focus was on St. Johns and Eatonville, which both hold significance in Black history.
When Florida was under Spanish rule, Fort Mose in St. Johns served as a settlement for enslaved people fleeing the Carolinas. During the 1960s Civil Rights movement, King led demonstrations to end segregation that drew national attention. He was arrested and held in the county jail. A house he was staying in drew gunfire.
In its proposal, Eatonville leaned on the legacy of author Hurston and the town’s proximity to Ocoee, site of a massacre in 1920 on an election night when a white mob killed dozens of Black people.
As things stood Tuesday, St. Johns scored the highest rating at 96.78 on a 110-point scale, and Eatonville sat at 95.33. A 78 score from Republican Rep. Kiyan Michael of Duval County lowered Eatonville’s rating.
“To make the process fair, I don’t think we can ignore the rankings,” Thompson said, seemingly alluding to Michael’s vote. “There are so many other bodies that, as you say, eliminate the highest and eliminate the lowest so that you don’t put yourself in a position where you have one person manipulating the process to tank a proposal.”
In return, Michael complained she was being targeted.
“There has been a lot of media coverage on this task force, on the meeting that we just had, the last meeting that we had, and it was targeted towards me and the way that I scored,” she said. “I have a right to score according to the information just like everyone else. Never did I deliberately taint any score to rise up another location.”
–Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix, and FlaglerLive
former St Augustine immersive guide says
Did the choice for location really get vetted well? St. Augustine already has Black History museums: Lincolnville, Ft Mose, ACCORD Civil Rights Museum and ACCORD Freedom Trail (highlighting with 31 location markers the historic events and amazing people who fought for Civil Rights in St Augustine). After working in St Augustine for 6 ½ years, it seems that people usually tour the downtown area and enjoy the atmosphere and history. There are some trips made to the nearby south away from downtown to Anastasia Island to the Lighthouse, Alligator Farm, and Amphitheater (usually for concerts), and possibly restaurants. Many people stop for a few attractions on their way to Orlando. Some come out just for the day or the weekend. Others stay for a week, but part of their vacation is also spent at the beach. Students in the 4th grade studying FL history come to St Augustine from all over the State. However, they generally go to the Castillo Fort and maybe 1 other location if visiting for the day. Those school groups that spend 3-5 days can visit more locations, but they typically are the main ones: Castillo, Flagler, Lightner, Lighthouse, Alligator Farm, and maybe a few more as booked by local agencies. Would a Black History Museum off the regular track gain lots of visitors? I think looking at World Golf Village might give some insight.
Eatonville, has a couple of small Black History museums. A State Museum here would be easily accessible via highway and toll roads, give a broader State perspective of history, catch a larger group of visitors (between Orlando and Daytona Beach), and could capitalize on WWII people that would easily link to St Augustine. Additionally, it would give a great school field trip location without being a side note to earlier FL history as prevalent in St Johns County. There is a town where the population would be highly focused on presenting not only local Black History, but linking it to the State, so as not to be diluted by the Spanish, French, and British history that dominates St Augustine. St Johns also conserves the history of the Minorcans, Greeks, Irish, and Scottish, with historical evidence for Filipinos, Chinese, Russians, and others. Eatonville has the location, ability to sustain, higher level of focus, and willingness/eagerness to make it a success. Folks are already invested with their hearts!!
I wasn’t on the committee, obviously, but I think there are some higher points that were missed when determining where the location of the museum should be.
Callmeishmael says
I agree. I wonder if the museum in St. Augustine will highlight when city officials had Martin Luther King, Jr. arrested. Or when the owner of the Monson Motor Lodge poured acid in the pool when African Americans were swimming in it. . . or when the St. Johns County Sheriff’s office sicked the dogs on folks trying to integrate the beach. How about the fact that “Whites Only” signs were common in St Augustine well into the 1970s? Or the Klan rallies and the firebombing of homes?
Better to put the museum in Eatonville, a place where the African American community thrived.
endangered species says
Black history has been banned in this state. Museum will show all the skills they learned while being beaten against their will. Doubt it will highlight the things like Tulsa race massacres that robbed them of wealth and liberty. If you want an education, get out of florida. gop are in full sabotage mode of any education thats not racist and hateful to others as this is needed for the next fascist takeover attempt coming soon.
David says
Zora Neale Hurston certainly put Eatonville on the map with her writing, but she was not born there. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama in 1891. I have visited that community and the cemetery where her kin are buried. Notasulga figures in her first novel, “Jonah’s Gourd Vine.” (I am not, however, arguing that Florida should put its Black History Museum in Notasulga, Alabama).
I think that the point made by “endangered species” is well-taken. Eternal vigilance will be needed to keep this project on the straight and narrow.