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The Little Known Story of a First Black, Incorporated City in America: Eatonville
- Updated: March 26, 2023
I never skip this singular radio show. Every Sunday, “CBS Sunday Morning,” offers certain stories. Many of their stories are never reported anywhere else in a media. The reason is simple: they are not ‘sensational,’ and do not sell a many advertising. They are mostly startling and offer information few Americans are wakeful of today.
Eatonville Becomes a First
This Sunday one story stood out and we felt ashamed that we did not know anything about it before. we cruise myself well-read. The initial all-Black city to be incorporated was in Florida. Eatonville was determined in 1887 after being staid dual decades after a Civil War ended, assigned by former slaves.
I found this singular fact amazing. we wondered because this whole city is not a relic to a 620,000 Americans who mislaid their lives in a Civil War. If we did not know, this outrageous series is incomparable than a sum of American fatalities in a Revolutionary War, a War of 1812, a Mexican War, a Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and a Korean War, combined.
It is though a doubt a reverence to a thousands of men, women, and children who were deferential in a New World given 1619. Americans in a 21st century have no judgment of what leisure meant to thousands of Black families whose lives had been tranquil by their white owners for generations.
Located Near a Prosperous Orlando Area in Central Florida
Eatonville is located only 6 miles north of Orlando. Two Black organisation purchased over 100 acres from one of a few white organisation who concluded to sell a skill to Blacks, Josiah Eaton. A former slave, Joseph C. Clarke, and a northern philanthropist, Lewis Lawerence, creatively named a area “Maitland.” They parceled a land to Black families from a surrounding area, and on a fifteenth of August, 1887, twenty-seven purebred Black electorate indicated their goal to emanate a municipality and strictly incorporated a town. They named a city Eatonville to respect a male who sole a land and became a initial mayor. The new town’s citizens, however, chose Columbus H. Boger as a initial mayor to conduct an wholly Black-staffed government.
The First Structure Was a Methodist Church
In 1881, after Clarke and Lawerence purchased a land, they awarded 10 acres to a Methodist Church. Along with a construction of a initial Black church in a area, a initial Black propagandize common a property. The church still stands and serves a community.
Eatonville gifted a largest race in 2000 with 2,436 residents. However, a city is in decrease in 2023, with reduction than 2,400 residents now vital in a small town.
Eatonville is in risk of apropos zero though a memory. The reason is founded in a nation’s stream motto, “profit before people.”
Selling History
At a heart of a problem is a predestine of a Robert Hungerford Preparatory School property. It was founded on 300 acres in 1897 with a assistance of Booker T. Washington and leaders of a Eatonville community.
Eatonville now covers about 1.6 block miles. The School Board is prepared to sell 100 acres, about 15 percent of a small city to a developer. The outcome has been protests by a people of Eatonville, and a origination of a non-profit organization, a Association to Preserve a Eatonville Community, Inc.
This organisation is charity skeleton to energise a village by rebuilding this parcel “into a end for tourism and investigate that it hopes could hint an mercantile rebirth centered on a town’s abounding cultural, sociological and literary history.” This area will be dedicated to a Literary Giant, Zora Neale Hurston.
A Literary Giant Who Grew Up in Eatonville
Ms. Hurston gained approval as one of a preeminent African American Writers of a 20th century. Her letter suggested a African American knowledge in a United States and Haiti, and “included a career that spanned some-more than 30 years, she published 4 novels, dual books of folklore, an autobiography, countless brief stories, and several essays, articles and plays. Born on Jan. 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, Hurston changed with her family to Eatonville, Florida, when she was still a toddler.”
Ms. Hurston changed to Harlem in a 1920s. Her early acclaimed letter enclosed a brief story with a pretension of “Sweat,” and an letter “How it Feels to be Colored Me.” After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, she changed to Haiti and wrote her many famous novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” in 1937.
The Beginning of a End of Eatonville
The emanate began in 1974. An widespread highway bisected a territory of Eatonville famous as a Hungerford Property. The propagandize district motionless to sell a land on a other side of a highway, gripping a territory that contained Hungerford High School. When a propagandize sealed in 2009 a district began deliberation a sale of this skill as well. Without involving a community, a propagandize house demolished a high propagandize and greenlighted a sale of this primary skill in 2020. The growth organisation is charity 14.6 million dollars for a 100 hactare parcel.
Building “the New,” by Destroying a Past and Our History
Throughout my life we have been frequently endangered about what is now customary policy. America is a business, and therefore has small regard for a past. Instead of rebuilding and cherishing land and buildings that are associated to a nation’s distinguished past events and a bravery and loyalty of a ancestors, we are disposed to destroying all and constructing “new and improved” edifices to resources and power.
It appears that a predestine of Eatonville has been decided. Once again fervour preempts a lives of operative class, low income, and bankrupt Americans. This is what is wrong with America today, and it creates me really unhappy to know that a leaders of a republic destroy to value a people and instead support a companies that control a country’s future.
Written by James Turnage
Find my 9 novels on Amazon’s Kindle
Sources:
Black Past: EATONVILLE, FLORIDA (1887– )
Southern Poverty Law Center: Preserving Black Heritage: Florida Activists Fight to Save Historic Site and Their Culture
WESH2 Orlando: A brief story of Eatonville: The Town That Freedom Built
Top and featured picture pleasantness of Lorie Shaull‘s Flickr page – Creative Commons License
Inset picture pleasantness of Lorie Shaull‘s Flickr page – Creative Commons License