Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center

St. Augustine, Florida

March 24, 2022

According to the plaque inside the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, in 1866 small lots in Southwest St Augustine were leased to St. Augustine Blacks for $1.00 a year. The area that we now know as Lincolnville was first known as Little Africa but was renamed in 1880 to honor the president who abolished slavery. Despite the Jim Crow laws of the early 20th century, Lincolnville was thriving as an independent community filled with vitality, pride, and a strong sense of faith.

To commemorate the resilience of this community and remember their accomplishments as well as the struggles the black community in St Augustine faced the community created the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center in what was once the Excelsior School Building, which served as the first public black high school in Saint Johns County in 1925.

https://www.lincolnvillemuseum.org/

Exterior Photo 1:

Exterior Photo 2:

Artifact Photo 1:

The Equal Justice Initiative strives to create greater awareness and understanding of racial terror and lynchings. The program works with communities to commemorate and recognize the traumatic era of lynching. To do this they collect soil from lynching sites across the country and erect monuments and markers in these spaces. Above is the soil from the lynching site of Isaac Barrett as well as a photo of the Wall of Jars at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Artifact Photo 2:

Prior to the opening of Butler beach, Florida's beaches were "whites only". This angered Frank B. Butler so he began to buy oceanfront property down Anastasia Island. Eventually, his property spanned from the Atlantic to the Matanzas River and was the only beach open to African-Americans between Daytona and American Beach.

In Conversation Photo 1:

Above is a photo of the Greensboro sit-in which sparked a movement of lunch counter sit-ins across the American South. I remember learning about this sit-in during middle and high school; however, I was unaware of the influence that this sit-in had on other American youths to do the same. When I saw the Woolworth counter at the Lincolnville museum I was shocked to learn that a similar sit-in happened just down. the street from Flagler college but it is rarely discussed.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/GenericImages/2013/05/28/1369750065000-WOOLWORTHS-MISS-052813-2-1305281058_16_9.jpg width=2000&height=1171&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp

In Conversation Photo 2:

The Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center is located on Martin Luther King Ave. Although there are many streets named in his honor This street which runs through Lincolnville is special because he actually walked on it in the course of changing history. King spoke at St. Paul AME Church during the civil rights movement, as did Jackie Robinson. Hundreds or more attended rallies at the church which is located on what is now MLK ave. These individuals also marched to the Plaza de la Constitucion in downtown St. Augustine to push for civil rights.

https://floridahumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/MLKinStAugustine.jpg

Literature in Conversation:

In [lukao] by Craig Santos Perez active erasure of culture and history is discussed by crossing out passages that discuss traditional practices, like the one below. 

This erasure of history happens all over the world to marginalized groups or when a country is not happy with its history. We can see this erasure in St. Augustine too, many people are completely unaware of how tightly connected st Augustine and the Civil Rights Movement are. Most people don't realize the rich Civil rights era history that is just in their backyards here. The Lincolnville Museum and Cultural center works hard so that erasure like this does not continue in our town.

Creative Component:

Above I have redrawn the Old Town Trolley Tour route. This new route passes almost all of the previous stops; however, it has been redrawn to include stops throughout Lincolnville. Doing this would not only educate visitors about how the Civil rights movement shaped St. Augustine but would also bring visitors to the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural center who otherwise would not have known it was there.