After spending a month in Rockledge with my brother David and sister-in-law Justine, along with my niece Danielle and working out my childhood friend and wellness coach, Jeanette, it was time for me to hit the road again. And that meant making one last Florida travel stop before relaxing in Fort Walton Beach for a few days with my other brother Hermes. 

That last Florida stop was St. Augustine, considered our nation’s oldest city.

Even though, St. Augustine was occupied by Native Americans,  some estimate as early as 10,000 years before the first Europeans arrived in Florida, Christopher Columbus is credited for ‘discovering’ the islands of the “New World,” in 1492. But the Spanish exploration of Florida began in 1513 with expeditions near present day St. Augustine

The Spanish explorer was searching for the “Fountain of Youth,” a fabled water source that was said to bring eternal youth. Ponce de León named the peninsula he believed to be an island “La Florida” because his discovery came during the time of the Easter feast, or Pascua Florida.

In pursuit of a rumored fountain of youth located on an island known as Bimini, Ponce de León led an expedition to the coast of what is now Florida in 1513. Thinking it was the island he sought, he sailed back to colonize the region in 1521, but was fatally wounded in an attack by the Native Americans soon after his arrival. He is also credited for naming the region “La Florida” or Florida either because the word ‘florido’ means ‘full of flowers’ or ‘flowery,’ in Spanish or because his ‘discovery took place around the Catholic holiday of Easter and was named for its ‘flowering Easter’ in relation to Palm Sunday. 

But, the first European settlement in Florida was established by the French Protestants in 1564. They were led by French explorer Rene de Laudonniere and built Fort Caroline near current day Jacksonville. Then, a year later, in 1565, Spanish Admiral, conquistador and  explorerPedro Menéndez de Avilés established the first permanent European settlement in St. Augustine in 1565.

European settlements and conflicts had a devastating effect on Native Americans and set the stage for the later Seminole Wars.

There’s more to the history, but in all honesty, I plan to stop right here…for now. And, even include a bit of present-day news making. 

The one thing that I did not expect was a Black Lives Matter protest that occurred at the corner of the former Slave Market, an open-air pavilion where enslaved Africans were bought and sold. The protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement was being conducted by a predominantly white human rights group, while the pro-Trump supporters, also predominantly white, were shouting “All Lives Matter,” waving flags with the president’s face on it and signs about saving monuments, to which I attribute confederate monuments since one had just recently been removed from the nearby the Plaza de la Constitución.

At any rate, there’s just so much history in St. Augustine that it is truly difficult to unpack without going back hundreds of years, so I will hit the highlights of what caught my attention during my two-night, three day stay…even with several places closed due to the Coronavirus. 

So, let’s unpack the oldest European inhabited U.S. city of St. Augustine together.

 

Black Lives Matter protesters, which consistently of predominately white protestors and pro-Trump supporters also predominantly white supporters/protestors both gathered and rallied their causes at the former Slave Market, an open-air pavilion where enslaved Africans were bought and sold, at the corner of St. Augustine’s Plaza de la Constitución, the town square on which the market sits.

Considering black faces were already in short supply while I was in St. Augustine, seeing a Black Lives Matter protest without black faces was a bit unusual and gratifying, even though I know this movement has seen people from all races, ages, religions and backgrounds coming together in support of racial justice. And, this group of white human rights activists, protesting in favor of equal justice for Black Lives Matter, were extremely vocal in their support, as were the pro-Trump supporters/protestors. 

As a black woman it was odd to see these two groups of white people yelling at one another in support of their causes. But by the same token, many whites throughout the Civil Rights Movement have protested against racism and still continue to do so through the Black Lives Matter movements like this one. Yet when I looked at these two groups, of the same race, arguing about racism and justice for all, I realized that as much as Black Lives Do Matter, and the people who hate see color first, racism is something we must all fight together. As a human race, we must understand that what hurts one, will hurt all.

In 1845, Florida joined the Union as a ‘slave state.’ By the 1860 census, St. Augustine’s people included 1,938 slaves, 1,217 whites and 90 free blacks. Florida joined he Confederacy in 1861, but Union forces took St. Augustine the next year. After the Civil War, and tucked into the southwest corner of St. Augustine, African-Americans developed the Lincolnville community. 

Now known as the Lincolnville Historic District, it is considered St. Augustine’s most prominent historically black neighborhood and is associated with many significant events in the city’s African American history. 

Founded in 1866 by former slaves, Lincolnville started life as Little Africa, a plot of land where freed slaves gathered to build homes and put down roots. It was renamed following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Segregationist practices that swept the South between 1890 and 1910 spurred the growth of black owned and operated commercial enterprises.

By 1930, Lincolnville had become a major part of the city encompassing both the African-American community and the adjacent white residential areas that had grown up with it. 

In 1964, civil rights demonstrations organized in Lincolnville attracted nationwide attention and influenced the Congressional debate that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today, the 50-block Lincolnville neighborhood still contains the St. Augustine’s largest concentration of late Victorian Era buildings, most of them private homes.

Skipping around to oddities, the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum is home to Michelangelo’s gorgeous David. Or The David. I’ve seen the original masterpiece, in all his wonderful flesh, at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy. This copy is hot too, but the original is magical. If you’ve seen the one in Florence, then you can judge for yourself. 

And, as I’m leaving St. Augustine to make the more than five hour drive to my brother Hermes’ house in Fort Walton Beach, I pass a historical marker with Zora’s Neale Hurston’s (1891-1960) name on it and of course I had to turn around and come back. pointing to another place noted author Zora Neale Hurston once lived in Florida. 

Best known as the author of the 1937 novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Hurston was one of the most prominent authors to come out of the Harlem Renaissance and she lived in St. Augustine on several occasions. And since I wrote about going to her hometown of Eatonville and to her grave in Fort Pierce, I had to stop check out the sign and where she once lived. 

The vibrancy of Zora and how she chose to live her life so unabashedly during a time of deep racism and sexism is a testament to her complete effervescence.