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1526 Project: A Look Back at Florida's Black History in Photos

Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 8:18 a.m.

State Library and Archives of Florida Enslaved Africans were first brought to Spanish La Florida in 1526. Pictured is the Key West landing of a cargo of slaves captured from the ship "Williams" in May, 1860. 1/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Announcement of a slave auction in Jacksonville (1856). 2/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Public notice for a slave sale on June 29, 1842, near Tallahassee. 3/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Tampa newspaper ad offering a reward for the return of Dr. Edmund Jones' escaped slave, Nimrod. 4/21

Photo by George Barker via Library of Congress The old slave market in St. Augustine. 5/21

The Massachusetts Historical Society Jonathan Walker's hand branded with the letters "SS" for "slave stealer." 6/21

State Library and Archives of Florida The William English Slave Plantation House (Fort Dallas), in Miami (c. 1880). 7/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Members of the 1861 Florida Secession Convention in Tallahassee. 8/21

State Library and Archives of Florida 65 members of the Tallahassee Convention signed Florida's Ordinance of Secession on January 10, 1861. 9/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Ex-slaves picking cotton in Jefferson County (c. 1890). 10/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Woman by a Virginia Beach sign blown down during a hurricane (1950). Virginia Key Beach was the first beach in Miami-Dade County that black residents could enjoy. 11/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Flier advertising the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in 1950s Florida. 12/21

Patricia Stephens Due Collection via State Library and Archives of Florida White youth harassing FAMU student Nathaniel Williams during a civil rights protest against segregated lunch counters in Tallahassee (1960). 13/21

State Library and Archives of Florida FAMU students protesting the arrest of their classmates after they participated in sit-ins of segregated lunch counters in Tallahassee (March 12, 1960). 14/21

State Library and Archives of Florida White youth ripping protester's poster during a civil rights demonstration at McCrory's segregated lunch counter in Tallahassee (December, 1960). 15/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Civil rights wade-ins in Fort Lauderdale during the summer of 1961 (pictured on July 24) helped end the segregation of Broward County's beaches. 16/21

State Library and Archives of Florida A confrontation between integrationists and segregationists at a whites-only beach in St. Augustine on June 25, 1964. The Civil Rights Act passed the Senate on June 19 and was signed into law on July 2, 1964. 17/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Civil rights activists Ralph Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak in St. Augustine in 1964. 18/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (here pictured being escorted away in a Florida Highway patrol car) was arrested in St. Augustine for attempting to enter the segregated Monson Motor Lodge Restaurant (1964). 19/21

State Library and Archives of Florida Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s arrest record at St. Augustine (1964). 20/21

State Library and Archives of Florida NAACP members marching to the Florida State Capitol to advocate for the Civil Rights Act (March 27, 1964). 21/21

1526 Project: A Look Back at Florida's Black History in Photos

The New York Times' groundbreaking "1619 Project" examined the legacy of slavery on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to America's 13 original colonies. But slavery existed in the Spanish colony of La Florida nearly a century earlier. From the arrival of enslaved Africans in 1526 to the massacre of black voters on Election Day 1920, here are a few moments in Florida's black history you didn't learn in school. Read the full 1526 Project here.