07.21.24 Lincolnville

july 21 2024

just stumbled upon this place / st augustine / july 20 2024

yesterday, i went to the Lincolnville Cultural Center, located in Historic Lincolnville, a black neighborhood during Reconstruction. it was a center for organizing and also a museum, with exhibits on everything from st. augustine’s early spanish colonial history, to maroon settlements & slave rebellions, accounts from the Civil Rights Movement in st. augustine, and the blues history of florida. in the Civil Rights Era section, they included testimony from someone who witnessed a kkk rally. the account must have been 12 pages long and i stood there and read every word. it included direct quotes of klansmen and the speeches that were given that night. their language was blunt and simple. they hated black people and wanted them gone, either out of this country or 6 feet under. i know people like this exist; still, reading their words sent chills up my spine. and it wasn’t just their words -- it was the fact that they spoke them so close to where i was standing. and it was the fact that they spoke to violence that i know, that i’ve witnessed, in a way, just from growing up in this area. their words were the words that i’ve always known to be in this place. i can feel them as i drive through the country past all the confederate flags and blue stripes. and the fear and anxiety they conjure in my body was all too familiar. i know there are klansmen here still. they are quieter now, more careful. this was only in the 60s -i’m sure some of the grandchildren of the people at this rally must walk these same streets.

people tend to forget florida when telling histories about the deep south and jim crow and the Civil Rights Movement, but this place has seen so much violence. the spanish crown had established settlements in florida a centry before the establishment of jamestown, and by 1526 there had already been a slave rebellion on what would come to be american soil. everyone knows the date 1619, but few recognize that the first spanish expedition in 1513 brought free and enslaved africans to florida, and by 1526 there had already been a slave rebellion in spanish territory (technically current day georgia). the first contingent of slaves arrived in st. augustine in 1582.

16th Century Slave Rebellions in the Circum-Caribbean. Lincolnville Cultural Center

Andrew Young, Civil Rights activist and confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said of st. augustine, “There was no movement I was a part of in America that was as brutal and violent as the movement [there]… It’s the only place where the hospital bills were bigger than the hotel and food bills for the movement.”

the truth is, florida has a longer colonial history than anywhere else in the south. and with that, a longer black history, with all its layers. in the early colonial period, florida was a place that black people escaped to. Fort Mose was a free black settlement which provided refuge to fugitives fleeing british plantations throughout the south. at this time, there was another Underground Railroad, and it moved from north to south. and at the same time, the spanish were brutal and violent as the british, and most of florida was still orange plantations and military settlements. Fort Mose could not have been goodwill, it was surely a political maneuver to undermine the british influence in the region. the spanish used black and indigenous people as pawns -- the same way imperial powers do today. but what feels most potent to sit with is the fact that even while caught between such conflicting sovereignties, the people that settled at Fort Mose found a way to make life. they were free but they were captives in a colonial missionary project but they were free and they lived as they were. because that’s what you do, you live, and you farm and fish and forage and you have doctors and teachers and mothers and you nurture community and defend it. you live until you can’t anymore -- but until that moment, what you are/what you do is living.

i felt this standing at the cultural center, named after a neighborhood which no longer exists, in a school which no longer exists. it is a place holding histories of violence and death and evil - real evil - and yet it is a place of refuge and of safety. i was reading the words of klansmen and at the same time hearing the laughter of the aunties at the front desk, and smelling the wafting scent of fried chicken and okra they were sharing. i really wonder how it must have felt to be making life at Fort Mose, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose. still a fort, still saturated with colonial violence, still a home, still a refuge, still a destination. this is how florida feels to me these days. and for the first time in my life, i feel a willingness and availability to be with all of this messiness and all of these layers. it’s so overwhelming to love something.

last week in our meeting with Chetna, she said something about how messy and multifaceted humans are -- something about how when naming all the emotions that are present for us, it’s not “buts,” we should use, it’s “ands.” i am terrified and brave. i am proud and ashamed. i am open and cautious. what a blessing it is to be many things at once. what a relief, to know that we can presence all of it. that presencing the violence and bearing witness to it doesn’t mean that we don’t also know what joy is. i need to know what haunts a place so to know how to be with it. i want to know what the trees tell.

after the Cultural Center, i went to Caribbean and Soule off US-1, and spent hours talking with Carlene, the auntie who runs the place. César, one of the chefs, was playing music and dancing and i stayed with them both until the place emptied out. Carlene sent me home with lots of rice and peas. after, i went to the water and laid down a prayer for Isaac Barrett, whose name i am grateful to now know.

footsteps / st augustine / july 20 2024

low tide / st augustine / july 20 2024

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