The History of Florida (94 page)

Local whites often acknowledged the leadership debt. “When partisan and

racial generalizations were set aside,” Brown noted, “communities often re-

tained sentiments of respect for individual black officeholders.”3 This did

not deter efforts either to exclude blacks from the voting booth or to elimi-

nate office holding by race representatives. Under the constitution of 1885,

legislators imposed a variety of restrictions that included, among others,

payment of a pol tax as a prerequisite for voter registration. Meanwhile,

the state literal y seized control for several years of cities such as Pensacola,

Key West, and Jacksonvil e. Introduction of the partisan primary system fol-

lowed beginning in 1897, leading to the notorious “white primary” system

within the Democratic Party that excluded black voters entirely.

Thus, the principal dynamics that led to the ouster of African Americans

from political power in the Sunshine State were not incompetence, cor-

ruption, or criminality as sometimes has been argued. Even in the face of

economic pressures and physical violence, many black Floridians strove to

maintain a voice at the government table. The white primary system guar-

anteed that they would do so as Republicans, and, within that limitation,

leaders such as Jacksonville’s Joseph E. Lee fostered persistence of black po-

litical influence within the national Republican Party into the 1920s. This

helps to account for black postmaster Thomas S. Harris’s presence at Live

proof

Oak in 1901 and the fact that Tal ahassee’s G. C. McPherson would be serv-

ing on a United States jury the same year. Meanwhile, African Americans at

the century’s turn continued to sit on city councils at Jacksonville, Key West,

Fernandina, St. Augustine, Cedar Key, and other places. Two black council-

men, Albert Louis Browning and Joseph A. Nottage, in fact served Palatka

as late as 1924. No wonder that, when woman’s suffrage became the law of

the land in 1920, African American women—technical y exempt from pay-

ment of pol taxes—streamed to urban pol ing places at the urging of leaders

such as Jacksonville’s Eartha White and Daytona’s Mary McLeod Bethune.

They did so in direct defiance of Ku Klux Klan intimidation.

Contributions to Florida’s urban-state orientation obviously did not stop

with political influence and office holding. Credit also should be given to

black truck farmers who, more so than did whites in many places, fed the

growing populations of the towns and cities. The production of vegetables

at F. W. Rutherford’s 20-acre farm near Orlando provides an excel ent il-

lustration, as does the nutritious output of D. J. Williams’s operations close

to St. Augustine. Robert Aiken furnished Tal ahasseans with cabbage and

peas, while B. L. Brown offered up peas, beans, turnips, and mustard greens

at Jacksonville. Examples of the same sort abound in virtual y every locale

450 · Larry Eugene Rivers

and for almost every staple crop. Sometimes a particular community might

even earn a reputation for specialization in a distinctive crop. Sanford’s Af-

rican American farmers, to cite one such instance, helped to perfect celery

production and techniques that permitted shipment of the crop not only

into town but also to northern markets.

Meat and poultry also came, in many places, from black stockmen and

producers. Wil iam H. Ford specialized in turkeys at Tal ahassee. J. D.

McDuffie took pride in pork production at his Marion County properties,

while his Alachua County compatriot James Hale offered quality beef. The

premier Florida cowman, though, was Lawrence Silas of Kissimmee. In a

career that spanned nearly three-quarters of the twentieth century, Silas

contributed substantial y to the growth and improvement of the state’s cattle

industry. “He is important,” Zora Neale Hurston proclaimed in the
Saturday

Evening
Post
, “because his story is a sign and a symbol of the strength of the

nation.” She continued, “It helps to explain our history, and makes a promise

for the future.”4

Hurston was correct. Silas’s accomplishments reflected broader and now

largely forgotten contributions of black men and women to Florida agri-

culture. Take the citrus industry, for example. From the 1890s, the state’s

population progressively shifted southward with the extension of Florida’s

proof

railroad networks. Especial y after the disastrous Great Freeze of 1895, the

development of citrus groves increasingly fueled new local economies and

attracted settlers deeper into the peninsula. Already, black homesteaders

of the Reconstruction era had undertaken citrus cultivation in Tampa and

Hil sborough, Hernando, Polk, and Manatee Counties, providing vivid

proof to potential northern émigrés at the terminus of Henry Plant’s rail

empire that the industry promised lucrative prospects.

Similar models greeted East Coast arrivals. One such grower, Andrew

Jackson, in 1870 had planted 500 orange trees near Titusvil e and within

three years was earning the considerable sum of $1,000 per season. Jackson’s

operations by 1890 had grown to the point that his profits and the quality

of his “first-class” fruit helped to establish industry standards in the region.

In the same vein, at the peninsula’s heart near Leesburg, black growers also

provided a backbone for citrus production as “orange gold” lured inves-

tors. “This little chapel is completely surrounded by orange groves,” African

Methodist Episcopal Zion Church clergyman Joseph N. Clinton recorded

in 1894 at Orange Bend, “and nearly every member of our church owns his

grove, of, from three to five acres.” Even where whites owned the land, black

Florida’s African American Experience: The Twentieth Century and Beyond · 451

laborers’ contributions were of critical importance. They typical y provided

the muscle and, not unusual y, the expertise that kept newly settled white

owners in business and profiting from their investments.5

Early-twentieth-century agricultural successes bespoke both an interest

in further advancements and in building durable and effective ties across

the state. State Normal and Industrial School president Nathan B. Young

aided both goals by holding farmer’s institutes as early as 1901 to stress crop

diversification and truck farming techniques. These institutes led to more

formal Educational and Farmers’ Conferences held on the Tal ahassee cam-

pus, as well as to the publication, beginning in 1909, of the helpful
Bul etin

of
the
Agriculture
Department
. The Hungerford Institute in the meantime

also endeavored to improve the lot of African American agriculturalists.

In 1903, it initiated the first annual Farmers’ Conference at Eatonville. Ten

years further into the century, Frank Robinson of Leon County aided the

cause of agriculture as the state’s first county demonstration agent. Soon

thereafter, A. A. Turner covered much of the state as district agent.

Ties established through such efforts brought black Floridians closer to-

gether as the years passed, but they comprised only one element in a com-

plex picture. Residents, if they enjoyed the means, delighted in traveling

in order to relax, take cures, see friends and relations, manage business,

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or join with like-minded individuals in common causes and interests. Rail

excursions from city to city brought collective delight, and trips to seaside

locales developed by black entrepreneurs—including, for instance, Jack-

sonvil e’s Manhattan Beach—al owed families the joy of Florida’s coastal

reaches. Probably the most famous beach destination was one of the latest

to be opened as such. Amelia Island’s American Beach near Fernandina

long had welcomed black visitors, but not until 1935 did Afro-American

Life Insurance Company president Abraham Lincoln Lewis purchase the

site and undertake its formal development.

Institutional and organizational affiliations furnished near-constant jus-

tification for travel. Florida’s churches paved the way, encompassing within

their reach a significant portion of the African American population. “The

church provided refuge from a cold, racist, and indifferent world,” historian

Maxine D. Jones has explained. “It was probably the only institution where

blacks could seek solace, occupy leadership roles, make decisions, and

maintain organizational control without interference from whites.”6 Tracing

denominational origins in Florida to the Civil War and Reconstruction pe-

riods if not before, the AME Church, the AMEZ Church, the Colored (now

452 · Larry Eugene Rivers

Christian) Methodist Episcopal Church, and the various Missionary and

Primitive Baptist Churches competed with the Episcopalians, Presbyterians,

Northern Methodists, and Roman Catholics for membership and attention.

Church-sponsored conferences kept men and women on the move, as did

related charitable and social undertakings.

In terms of bringing people together, church functions served only as the

beginning. Clubs, associations, and social diversions proliferated, address-

ing a broad range of interests and social needs. West Palm Beach’s Ever Ready

Workers Civic Club afforded a good example, as did Jacksonville’s Criterion

Matrons Club. Eventual y, the Florida Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs

brought many such groups under its nurturing wings. Masonic and other

fraternal and sororal organizations likewise commanded time and interest.

Masonry had entered the state’s African American community in the late

1860s, with the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge organizing at Jacksonvil e the

following year. As its reach extended, Masonic Benefit Associations began

to appear as wel . The 1890s saw the erection of a magnificent Masonic head-

quarters temple in Jacksonville. It burned in the 1901 fire, but a five-story

structure built in 1942 and valued at $500,000 outshone earlier grandeur.

The Eastern Star for women natural y accompanied Masonic expansion.

From there, the list of groups lengthened with many organizations aimed at

proof

addressing benevolent causes including health coverage and burial benefits.

Standouts included the Household of Ruth, the Daughters of Calanthe, the

Lily White, and the Protective and Benevolent Order of Elks. Of special

importance were the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of

Pythias. Each of them strove, as black political strength waned, to provide

organizational support and statewide linkage for protection and resistance.

In many places, the Odd Fellows Hall stood out as an unofficial black city

hal .

Of additional importance, linkage among Florida’s col ege-educated

population—a vital leadership corps—flowed from college-based fraterni-

ties and sororities. From the early 1900s, these organizations have provided

strong social ties and networks for information flow across the state, region,

and nation. Alpha Phi Alpha, founded in 1906, came first. Alpha Kappa Al-

pha then debuted in 1908. Following were: Omega Psi Phi and Kappa Alpha

Psi (1911); Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Phi Beta Sigma (1913); Zeta Phi

Beta Sorority (1920); and Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority (1922). These original

eight were joined in 1966 by Iota Phi Theta. Especial y at Bethune-Cookman

and Florida A&M Colleges, these fraternities and sororities comprised an

instrumental part of the institutional social scene.

Florida’s African American Experience: The Twentieth Century and Beyond · 453

The timing of the rise of the college fraternities and sororities coincided

with increasing need for linkages within the state’s African American com-

munity. As mentioned, the early 1900s saw intensification of racist rhetoric

and heated demands for legal y enforced racial segregation measures that

often are remembered as Jim Crow discrimination. Not every white Flo-

ridian accepted the hate-filled verbiage, and in the century’s opening years

several attempts to enforce racial segregation in cities were beaten back. In

1905, however, former Duval County sheriff Napoleon Bonaparte Broward

took the governor’s chair and immediately requested Congress to segregate

all black Americans in a separate territory, “either domestic or foreign.” As

biographer Samuel Proctor explained, “His attitude toward the Negro fol-

lowed general y the definition given by Supreme Court Justice [Roger B.]

Taney in 1857 when he said that the ‘Negro had no rights or privileges but

such as those who held the power and the government might choose to

grant them.’”7 Reinvigorated by such leadership, Jim Crow supporters re-

newed their fight for discriminatory laws. Central to these initiatives were

efforts to mandate racial segregation on municipal streetcars. In places such

as Jacksonvil e, Pensacola, and Tampa community members protested as

black lawyers J. D. Wetmore, Isaac Lawrence Purcel , Charles H. Alston,

and others fought in the courts. In 1905 they achieved a signal victory in the

proof