| Florida African American
Timeline |
| 1842 |
Juan las Canarias, a Black sailor, serves on Christopher
Columbus's flagship, the Santa Maria to the New World. |
| 1527 |
Estevanico, an African slave, accompanies Andres de Dorants
on an expedition to conquer Florida. |
| 1540 |
A free African Spaniard serves as the interpreter on
Coronados' expedition through southwest North America. |
| 1675 |
Juan Merion, a free African, blacksmith came to St.
Augustine from Havana. By 1683, he opened his own forge, blacksmithing
for the royal armory and private citizen |
| 1693 |
King Charles II of Spain issues a royal proclamation giving
liberty to all runway in Florida who become practicing Catholics. |
| 1695 |
Merchants Isavel de los Rios, a free Black woman and Captain
Chrispin de Tapia, a free Black man testifies in a court case against
several Appalachian Native Americans had given them counterfeit money. |
| 1738 |
Fugitive slaves from Carolina form a slave militia in St.
Augustine. Two miles north of St. Augustine, they build Fort Mose and a
small town.
|
| 1763 |
The French and Indian War ends and Florida becomes an
English colony.
|
| 1790 |
The Spanish rescinds policy of religious sanctuary for
fugitive slaves.
|
| 1830 |
In Duval, Nassau, and St. Johns counties, slaves and free
Blacks comprised 52 percent of the population. |
| 1845 |
Florida becomes the twenty-seventh state in the United
States.
|
| 1856 |
T. Thomas Fortune was born a slave in Marianna, Florida.
Fortune later founds the newspaper New Age.
|
| 1861 |
Florida seceded from the Union January 10. The next month,
Florida representatives participate in the formation of the Confederate
States. |
| 1865 |
The U.S. Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to aid
African Americans.
|
| 1870 |
Josiah T. Walls becomes Florida's first African American
member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Others African Americans
politicians in Florida are John Wallace, Henry Harmon, Charles Pearce,
Robert Meachem, and Jonathan Gibbs.
|
| 1883 |
Eatonville is the first all African American incorporated
town.
|
| 1887 |
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College is founded to
provide higher education to African Americans. |
| 1889 |
A. Philip Randolph is born in Crescent City, Florida
Randolph organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, an African
American AFL union.
|
| 1903 |
Author Zora Neale Hurston is born in Eatonville, Florida.
|
| 1904 |
Mary McLeod Bethune founds the Daytona Normal and Industrial
Institute for Girls. |
| 1923 |
The first week of January a race riot erupts in Rosewood.
|
| 1934 |
William (Bill) De Kova White, the first African American
president of the National Baseball League was born in Lakewood. |
| 1958 |
Blanche Calloway is the first African American woman to vote
in Miami.
|
| 1968 |
Joe Lang Kershaw becomes the first African American elected
to the Florida legislature in this century. |
| 1975 |
Joseph W. Hatchett of Pinellas County takes the bench as
Florida's first African American Supreme Court Justice. |
| 1978 |
Daniel " Chappie" James, dies of a heart attack. He was the
first African American four-star general. |
| 1994 |
Governor Lawton Chiles names former African American
legislator, Doug Jamerson to be Commissioner of Education |
| View |
Bibliography |
