3. The African portion of this story is complex. It involves
free and enslaved Black people, who were sailors, carpenters,
cattlemen, bakers, soldiers, artisans, builders; but wait were
getting ahead of ourselves! Lets start at the beginning
4.
5.
6. At that time, there was little distinction between church
and state so having sighted the land on August 28, 1565 the feast
day of St Augustine, who incidentally was a noted North African
religious philosopher, the settlement was named in his honor.
7.
8. Over the next 200 years the status of Africans would
vary.
9. This military outpost would be caught up in the
international politics of territorial control, especially between
the Spanish and the British.
10.
11. At other times a middle passage port where captives were
delivered as a labor force most suited for survival in the
sub-tropical conditions.
12. Unfortunately, Americas oldest port city routinely has been
portrayed in a lop sided manner, emphasizing Spanish or British
heritage and little else. We all know that is never accurate when
describing a seaport.
13. More importantly for us, Africans and their descendants
were pretty much eliminated or cherry picked into the
narrative.
14.
15.
16. , diverse faith representatives, and a traditional libation
to honor unnamed and unknown African ancestors those who died
during the Middle Passage to the New World and those who survived
and contributed to Florida.
17. Saturday, February 7, 2015 to honor this history and
celebrate the lives of people who for so long have been forgotten.
The African heritage has made this city special as the first
Underground Railroad, the first legal settlement of free blacks,
the burial place of Black Civil War soldiers, the final impetus for
Civil Rights Act of 1964, and more.
18.
19.
20. With Thanks First Time I Saw Big Water Music from the PBS
series Africans in America by Orlando Bagwell Composed and
performed by Bernice Johnson Reagan and Toshi Reagan