A committee on Friday narrowed down options for the site of a Florida Museum of Black History, selecting as finalists St. Johns County, Eatonville in Orange County and Opa-locka in Miami-Dade County.
Whittled from a list of eight locations, the selections by the Florida Museum of Black History Task Force on Friday will next undergo an analysis by Florida A&M University’s School of Architecture and Engineering Technology.
The historically Black school’s findings are to be completed before a May 21 meeting. “There are so many stories that we haven’t told, that we will have an opportunity to tell, through this museum,” Sen. Geraldine Thompson, a Windermere Democrat who chairs the task force, said during Friday’s meeting. “It’s very, very important that we choose a location that will mean the museum will be self-sustaining and won’t continually be a budget item for the state of Florida,” Thompson added.
State lawmakers in 2023 created the task force to make recommendations on plans for a Florida Museum of Black History.
The legislation, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, required the task force to develop plans for the museum addressing overviews of different Black cultures in Florida, stretching from the 19th century into Reconstruction, the origins of the Jim Crow period and the civil rights movement. “We know about the NASA mathematicians and engineers, but we want to be able to stretch that out as well in a much more broader way,” John Grandage, assistant director of Historical Research at the Department of State, said Friday. The legislation also requires the committee to devise a plan on how the museum can become self-sustaining.
Jackson says
The decline of American civilization is being led by those claiming freedom, but imposing censorship. It is fostering a system that is NOT teaching children things. Education used to be about teaching so children would know more than their parents, but now they are limiting it to what parents know and like and defining them ambiguously so ignorance and bias are perpetuated. BTW there is no subject that does not have educational value. Any Education professional that says otherwise demonstrates their lack of qualifications for the job.
JimboXYZ says
If I’m voting of the 3 locations, Eatonville, FL sounds like it would be the ideal selection as it was the 1st all Black Incorporated town in the USA 1887.
https://florida.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aml15.ela.lit.setting/setting-eatonville-florida/
David Nolan says
People in Princeville, NC, a Black town incorporated in 1885, take exception to the claim that Eatonville is the first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeville,_North_Carolina
JimboXYZ says
Just my perspective, education K-12 was about getting the next generation up to speed on at least what they need to be relatively self sufficient. Technology & advancements tends to be the additional education & knowledge that leaves the Ne0-Luddite behind. Informed means more options, it’s not about educating for the sake of being smarter than the previous generation, the more intelligent never stop learning. To a large extent is any museum going to be anything more than teaching historical of what their parents knew anyway. In a way all another museum becomes is a spin on a new & improved kitchen appliance that does no more than the book knowledge of a class taught K-12. I tend to see the American History courses as doing a fine job of that.
Since this is St Augustine as one of the potential locations, like K-12, we all went on field trips to the Fort(s) & Oldest City. I think K-12 even did a fine job of teaching FL History. At a certain age, is a return to St Augustine Spanish exploration anything more than a refresher course ? Or did/will someone fabricate a new spin on what happened or didn’t as the next tall tale of romanticizing history ? At a certain point, law of diminishing returns for another history lesson of the same. I doubt I’m going to a museum, even if it’s a street over, Spanish Colonialization, Civil War, WW 1, WW2, whatever. I’ve spent too much time with that already in a lifetime, & more concerned about making my own history than being told about what others did a long time ago that is often obsolete at this point in American History. There is always going to be some crossover knowledge that applies, but that could be said of any era in American History. So I got the message K-12 in a classroom. The field trip for a re-creation was a fun distraction to get off the school premises. One of the more pointless field trips was the Bulow Creek ruins, I mean how long can anyone stand out in the middle of the Tomoka Woods & sweat looking at a plantation that is Ormond Beach’s Stonehenge for dilapidated & disrepaired history.
If I had my choice, I’d prefer they apply the funds to revive Cross & Sword in the St Augustine amphitheater. If they want a Black History play, that’s fine too. I just don’t think the museum will be the self sufficient economic model that the hope is for it, the arts & humanities usually never are. Hence why Cross & Sword faded into oblivion & extinction. The Castillo de San Marcos is a gold mine for St Augustine. Cross & Sword was a loss leader. Fort Matanzas. does that even generate enough revenue to pay for the boat rides to & from Rattlesnake Island(s) ?