James B. Crooks: The history of Jacksonville race relations. Part 1: Emancipation and Jim Crow

Author's note: Every city has its stories, about its origins, growth, peoples, cultures and more. Jacksonville is no different. What follows is a multipart story about the experiences of Jacksonville's African Americans since Emancipation.

Emancipation

The most important story of the 1860s in Jacksonville is not the Civil War but the end of slavery. In 1860 slightly fewer than 1,000 people of color lived in Jacksonville, 90 percent of them slaves (the town's census count was 2,118). A decade later, Black residents had quadrupled to almost 4,000 freedmen and women, 57 percent of the population. Black people remained a majority of Jacksonville's population until the First World War.

Most Black people arriving in Jacksonville were probably young, able-bodied and willing to work. Some had skills as housekeepers, cooks, carpenters, masons and shoemakers, But most were unskilled, manual laborers seeking work in construction, on the docks or in sawmills.

Housing was a challenge. Daniel Dustin Hanson, a surgeon in the U.S. Colored Troops that had occupied Jacksonville at the end of the Civil War, purchased land north of town (today FSCJ's Downtown Campus) and sold or leased parcels to men from his regiment and other Black residents. Francis F. L'Engle, a prominent lawyer and former slaveholder, acquired a portion of the LaVilla plantation west of town and also provided land for Black settlement. L'Engle incorporated the village of LaVilla in 1869 and governed with a multiracial council until LaVilla's annexation into Jacksonville in 1887. Still, the influx of newcomers exceeded the housing supply.

Literacy was a priority for Black people. Under slavery, laws prohibited teaching slaves to read, though some did learn. Many of the discharged Black soldiers who settled in Jacksonville learned to read in the service. In 1869, the Freedman's Bureau provided land for building for what became the first public school for Blacks, Stanton Normal or Graded School. While Black children attended during the day, Black adults attended at night.

Between 1865 and 1900, Duval County established free primary education and Black youngsters comprised half the enrollment. Lacking public high schools, Jacksonville African Americans with outside help established four private high schools (Edward Waters College (today a university), Florida Baptist Academy, Cookman Institute and Boylan Haven School for Girls), By 1900, according to the census, 86 percent of the Black population was literate. Only 35 years earlier state law had banned teaching slaves to read.

Jacksonville changed rapidly after the war. Rebuilding downtown, reopening the port and reviving tourism provided employment for both Black and white residents. Over time, Black people started small retail businesses, worked in construction, unloaded ships, became police and firefighters, nursed the sick, built churches, read law, became doctors and formed labor unions. Within a generation, Blacks had formed political organizations, partnered with white Republicans, and in 1887 elected five Black City Council members. Attorney Joseph E. Lee became a municipal judge and collector of customs for the port of Jacksonville, one of the power brokers of the Republican Party. In later years James Weldon Johnson would write about the 1880s in Jacksonville as a city, regarded by Black people “as the most liberal town in the South.”

Young African American adults in Jacksonville like Eartha White (age 25 in 1901) and James Weldon Johnson (age 30) had parents either born slaves or born during the time of slavery. They were one generation removed and their accomplishments were amazing. White became a school teacher, businesswoman, social worker and community activist. Johnson became principal of Stanton School; read law and became the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar; and with his brother John Rosamond in 1901, composed “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” which became the Black National Anthem.

Just before the fire of 1901, five Black community leaders including A.L. Lewis organized the Afro-American Life Insurance Company. Shortly after the fire, community leaders opened Brewster Hospital (forerunner to Methodist and UF Health Jacksonville). Other residents started pharmacies, groceries, restaurants, saloons, funeral parlors, bicycle and furniture repair shops and two banks. Black Jacksonville was not wealthy, but as Johnson wrote upon his return from a diplomatic post in Nicaragua in 1913, the city had become a “bustling, go-getter … boom town.” He saw evidence in the new automobiles and fine homes built in the Black community. He concluded, “I could not help but be infected by the enthusiasm, prosperity and opportunities around me.”

Jim Crow

Unfortunately, there was another side to the story of Black progress after the Civil War. White attitudes toward Black people were hardening in the city, across the state, regionally and nationally. A belief in white supremacy had always existed, but when James Weldon Johnson first wrote about the 1880s and 1890s, there was frequently a generous paternalistic attitude that encouraged Johnson to read law and pass the bar. The forerunner of the United Way hired Eartha White as a social worker to assist poor Black members of the community.

That generous attitude changed. It began at the state level in 1885 with a new state constitution requiring a poll tax effectively excluding poor Black and white voters. In 1887, the Democratic state legislature suspended Jacksonville's city government with its majority of Black and white Republicans for spurious reasons until such time as election districts could be re-drawn to ensure a more conservative white Democratic majority. It continued in 1900 with the passage of a white Democratic primary law barring Black people from voting for candidates of the party in primary elections.

In a state where that party predominated in general elections, prohibition meant that Black voters had no say. In 1907, the City Council further re-drew council district boundaries to exclude all-Black representation. It segregated streetcars, saloons, theaters and other public accommodations. It also eliminated Black police and firefighters restricting city employment for African Americans to only the most menial jobs. Black attorneys challenged the changes taking place, but the courts ruled against them.

Official Jim Crow established an American brand of apartheid by governmental action. It was matched by changing public opinion. Johnson saw it on his trips home from New York after moving there in 1903. He wrote that  Jacksonville had become a “100 percent cracker town.” When Johnson returned to Jacksonville after serving as counsel in Nicaragua in 1913, he considered whether to settle here. A white banker friend and patron warned him that if he had never left Jacksonville, it would have been one thing, but to leave and return, he said, “don't try it.”

When Jack Johnson, an African American prizefighter (and no relation) won the heavyweight championship in 1910, Black residents locally celebrated the achievement. White residents responded by rioting in the streets, attacking Black people and destroying their property. White police officers became notorious for their violence against Black men. And while there were no riots or violence on the scale of Tulsa, Okla., Atlanta, Wilmington, N.C., New Orleans, Chicago or Washington, D.C., there were two lynchings in 1919. White people dragged two Black homicide suspects out of the jail and killed them. The lynchers then tied one of the bodies to the rear bumper of a car, dragging it through town as a warning to other African Americans. Additional lynchings followed in the 1920s.

The harshness of Jim Crow lasted through the first half of the 20th century. When Mayor Haydon Burns appointed the first Black police officers in the modern era, they were housed at a separate substation in the old Blodgett Homes and lacked the authority to arrest whites. When the new City Hall and Duval County courthouse opened in the 1960s, both had separated Black and white restrooms and water fountains.

Conditions in the segregated schools were among the factors in Duval County's school disaccreditation in the 1960s. Not only were the Black schools too small and run-down, their dilapidated books were hand-me-downs from white schools with torn and mar pages. Desks and chairs were scratched or otherwise scarred. Meanwhile, KKK rallies and parades served to flaunt the success of Jim Crow in Jacksonville.

James B. Crooks is professor emeritus of history at the University of North Florida and author of  "Jacksonville After the Fire, 1901-1919, A New South City," and "Jacksonville, The Consolidation Story, from Civil Rights to the Jaguars."

Editor's note: The next part of this series will run in next Sunday's Reason section.