AMH 3930

Research Assistance:
African American Experiences in Florida
(1865 thru WWI)
Students on the steps of the Stanton Institute, Jacksonville. Early 20th century?
Contacts in the Library

For this class, your main contacts at the library are: James Cusick, Curator, P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History; Shelley Arlen, Carol Kem, and Dolores Jenkins, Reference Librarians, American History; Jo Talbird, Microforms Room; and Jan Swanbeck and Sally Cravens, Government Documents. All of us can help you with questions. You can contact me at the phone number and email address at the bottom of this page.

The P.K. Yonge Library, in the Department of Special Collections, contains regional histories of Florida that may be of use as background information for your paper topics. A sample list of reference works and local histories is given below. This is a partial list and you can find other titles in LUIS.

You can also search the library catalog, using "Basic Search, Browse Organized Lists" and the following information:

Title begins with: Black studies research sources (useful; brings up 21 microfilm collections)
Title begins with: Research collections in labor studies
Title begins with: Research collections in womens studies
Title begins with: Papers of the NAACP
Subject, LC: African American newspapers

Newspapers can be another good source of information and I can help you with newspaper research. As I noted in the orientation, we have relatively few complete runs of newspapers edited by African Americans but the Colored Citizen (Pensacola) and the "Colored People Here and Elsewhere" section of the Metropolis (Jacksonville) are useful for the period 1900-1920.

See me or one of the other librarians for information on microfilm collections.
 
Basic References, People, Places, and History

PEOPLE AND GENERAL BACKGROUND

Jones, Maxine Deloris
African Americans in Florida. Published: Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, c. 1993. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5 M37 1993
Besides being a basic source of information on major people, places, and events in African American history in Florida, also contains "Further Reading" suggestions for each entry.

McCarthy, Kevin M.
Black Florida. Published: New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5 M38 and SPEC COLL. F326 M123b
Gives brief historical accounts of towns and places and, like the above, also includes "Further Reading" entries.

Brown, Canter
Florida's Black public officials, 1867-1924. Published: Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998. Description: xiii, 252 p. : ill. LIBRARY WEST and SPECIAL COLL. E185.93.F5 B76 1998
Unfortunately, Canter's excellent introductory chapters in this book cover only the period up to around 1900. However, the second half of the book is a useful biographical dictionary and the "Notes" section points to a lot of primary source material.

Kennedy, Stetson
Jim Crow Guide: The Way it Was. Published: Various Editions. LIBRARY WEST and SPEC COLL. E184.A1 K35
A reprinted collection of key essays and studies by Kennedy. A useful introduction if you will be working with the Stetson Kennedy Papers. Kennedy was one of the first writers to infiltrate and expose Klu Klux Klan activities in the South.

Colburn, David R., and Jane L. Landers
The African American heritage of Florida. Published: Gainesville: University Press of Florida, c. 1995. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5.C65 1995
The notes and footnotes to the essays in this book may actually be of more use to you than the essays themselves. However, Chapter 8 deals with La Villa, Jacksonville; Chapter 9 is about Tampa; and Chapter 10 reviews changes in the situation of black women in Florida over time.

McDonogh, Gary W.
The Florida Negro: a Federal Writers' Project. Published: Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, c. 1993. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5 F57 1993 and SPEC COLL. F325 F6364
This is an annotated modern edition of Zora Neale Hurston's ethnographic studies of black communities and traditions in Florida collected in the 1930s.

Price, Hugh Douglas
The Negro and Southern politics; a chapter of Florida history. Published: New York: New York University Press, 1957. LIBRARY WEST 324.15 P945n and SPEC COLL. F326 P945n
This book examines the post World War II era, but you may want to consult it for the brief historical background regarding the fight to gain the vote.

Smith, Charles U., Editor
The Civil rights movement in Florida and the United States : historical and contemporary perspectives by Charles U. Smith, editor, and other civil rights experts including former Florida Governor Leroy Collins. Published: Tallahassee: Father and Son Publishing, c. 1989. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5 C58 1989b

NOTE: The library also has biographies of major African American figures in Florida (e.g., James Weldon Johnson, Mary McLeod Bethune, etc.). You should search LUIS for these materials.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

[See the chapters on African Americans in Florida and on the Progressive Era in the following books]

George, Paul S.
A Guide to the history of Florida. Published: New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. SPECIAL COLL. F016 G9464 Ref Florida History and LIBRARY WEST F311 .G841 1989

Harris, Michael H.
Florida history: a bibliography. Published: Metuchen, N.J., Scarecrow Press, 1972. LIBRARY WEST F311 .H351 Reference and SCIENCE LIBRARY 016.9759 H315f and SPECIAL COLL. F016 H315f Ref Florida History

Gannon, Michael V., Editor
The New History of Florida. Published: Gainesville, Fla., University Presses of Florida, 1996. LIBRARY WEST F311.5 G198 and SPEC COLL. F.02 G198 Ref Florida History
Look at both the contents and the notes for source material, especially Chapters 14-16, and 20-21.

The Black experience: a guide to Afro-American resources in the Florida State Archives. Published: Tallahassee, Fla.: Florida Dept. of State, Division of Library and Information Services, Bureau of Archives and Records Management, 1988. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5 B521 1988 Reference

Catalog of the Negro collections in the Florida A & M University Library. Published: Tallahassee, Friends of the Florida State University Library, 1969. LIBRARY WEST PS153.N5 C371 1969 Oversized

Clarke, Robert L., Editor
Afro-American history: sources for research. National Archives Conference on Federal Archives as Sources for Research on Afro-Americans, 1973. Publisher: Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1881. LIBRARY WEST E184.6 N37

VOTING RIGHTS

Ortiz, Paul A.
"Like water covered the sea:" The African American Freedom Struggle in Florida, 1877-1920. Publisher: Dissertation, Duke University, 2000. LIBRARY WEST E185.93.F5 O78 2000a
A much-talked about recent study of Florida. To be published in 2004. Meanwhile, we have the dissertation version.

EDUCATION

Jones, Merrill Otis
Contributions of Selected Privte Foundations to Florida's Public Schools, 1907-1947. Publisher: Dissertation, FSU, 1974. SPECIAL COLL. F370 J78c
Includes discussion of funding for teachers and black high schools within this time frame.

Henry, Annie Belle
Philanthropic foundations and their impact on public education for Blacks in Florida, 1920-1947 microform. Published: 1988. SPECIAL COLL. film 117-Q Florida History

Mitchell, Robert Lenton
Legislative provisions and their effects on Negro public education in Florida, 1869-1947. Published: c. 1970. EDUCATION LIBRARY LC2802.F6 M5734 1979

Rosen, Frederick Bruce
The Development of Negro Education in Florida during Reconstruction: 1865-1877. Publisher: Dissertation, UF, 1974. SPECIAL COLL. F371.9 R813d
Covers Reconstruction only, but provides a framework for the beginnings of black education programs in the state prior to 1900.

Scott, John Irving E.
The Education of Black People in Florida. Publisher: Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1974. EDUCATION LC2802.F6 S38 and SPECIAL COLL. F371.9 S427e

Williams, DeWitt Everett
A brief review of the growth and improvement of education for Negroes in Florida, 1927-1962. SPECIAL COLL. F371.9 W722b Florida History

RELIGIOUS HISTORY

Hall, Robert La Bret
"Do, Lord, remember me" microform: religion and cultural change among blacks in Florida, 1565-1906. Published: 1984. SPECIAL COLL. film 124-L Florida History

Long, Charles Sumner
History of the A.M.E. Church in Florida microform. Published: Philadelphia: A.M.E. Book Concern, 1939. LIBRARY WEST E185.96 .B5281 1987 Microfiche no. 157 and SPEC COLL. F287 L848h Florida History

JUSTICE SYSTEM AND PRISONS

Bacchus, James
Blacks and the Florida penal system, 1921-1971. Published: 1973. SPECIAL COLL. F326 B116b Florida History
This is an evaluation and critique of The Negro Offender (see below) and other early assessments of the prison system in Florida.

Vandiver, Margaret
Race, clemency, and executions in Florida, 1924-1966. Published: 1983. SPECIAL COLL. F364 V245r Florida History
This work is primarily a study in criminology focusing on the period after 1930, but it does contain a review of the earlier convict lease labor system and some material on punishments, mob violence, and lynchings in the 1920s (pp. 1-50).

Williams, George Croft
The negro offender, presented at the fifty-first congress of the American prison association, Jacksonville, Florida, 1921. Published: New York city, Russell Sage foundation, 1922. LIBRARY WEST 325.26 W7223n

AGRICULTURE

Cotton, Barbara R.
The lamplighters, black farm and home demonstration agents in Florida 1915-1965. Published: Tallahassee, Fla.: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in cooperation with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, c. 1982. SCIENCE LIBRARY S544.3.F6 C68 1982 and SPEC COLL. F630 C851L Florida History
Recommended as an introductory text if you think you will be using source material from the Agricultural Extension Service papers in the University Archives.

Note: You should also talk with Carl van Ness, University Archvist, in the Department of Special Collections, about materials in the papers of the University Agricultural Extension Service that relate to African American rural life and labor.

HISTORIES OF PLACES

American Beach
Phelts, Marsha Dean
An American beach for African Americans. Published: Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. LIBRARY WEST and SPECIAL COLL. F319.A45 P47 1997
American Beach has been and is one of the major fights to preserve a historic black town from encroaching development on super-wealthy Amelia Island.

Rymer, Russ
American Beach: a saga of race, wealth, and memory. Published: New York: Harper Collins, c. 1998. LIBRARY WEST F319.A45 R95x 1998

Daytona
Hebel, Ianthe Bond
Daytona Beach, Florida's racial history. Published: Daytona Beach, Fla., 1966. SPECIAL COLL. F.2 D27 H443d Florida History
A personal memoir of race relations in Daytona, not very good, and not very reliable.

Gainesville/Alachua/Marion
Miller, Edward Loring
Negro life in Gainesville : a sociological study. Published: Gainesville: University of Florida, 1938. SPECIAL COLL. F.2 G14 M647n Florida History
Miller conducted his research, including oral histories, in the mid-1930s. Some of his findings may be useful in looking at earlier periods.

Landers, Jane
The Negro community in Gainesville, 1868-1890. Published: 1982? SPECIAL COLL. F.2 G14 L255n Florida History
One of your precursors. Jane did this essay while she was a history student here.

The struggle for survival: a partial history of the Negroes of Marion County, 1865 to 1976. Edited and prepared by Central Florida Community College. Published: Ocala, Fla.: Black Historical organization of Marion County, c. 1977. SPECIAL COLL. F.2 M34 C397s Florida History

Parker, Idella, with Bud and Liz Crussell
Idella Parker, From Reddick to Cross Creek. Publisher: Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1999. LIBRARY WEST and SPECIAL COLL. PS3535.A845 Z842
A local best-seller. Idella Parker worked for many years as maid for the author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and has written two biographies about growing up in rural Alachua county, of which this is the most recent.

Jacksonville
Cassanello, Robert
African-American protest in Jacksonville, Florida, 1895 to 1920. Published: 1995. SPECIAL COLL. F319.J1 C2772x 1995a Florida History

Cassanello, Robert
The Great Migration, migrants and identity in the making of New South Jacksonville, Florida, 1865-1920. Publisher: Dissertation, FSU, 2000. ON ORDER
I hope to have this in about 3 weeks.

Kenney, Patricia Drozd
LaVilla, Florida, 1866-1887: reconstruction dreams and the formation of a black community. Published: 1990. SPECIAL COLL. F326 K3621 Florida History
LaVilla is much in the news as local community leaders try to preserve the area. It was the location of the Freedmen's Bureau during Reconstruction and a center of black film and music in the early 1900s. Urban renewal in Jacksonville has destroyed much of the area's heritage.

Richardson, Barbara Ann
A history of Blacks in Jacksonville, Florida, 1860-1895: a socio-economic and political study. Published: 1975. SPECIAL COLL. F.2 J14 R521h 1977 Florida History

Miami and South Florida
Castillo, Thomas Albert
Big City Days: Race and Labor in Early Miami, 1914-1925. Publisher: Masters Thesis, FIU, 2000. ON ORDER. I hope to have this in 3 weeks.

Dunn, Marvin
Black Miami in the twentieth century. Published: Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. LIBRARY WEST, Reserve (2 Hours) 2 hour checkout
and SPECIAL COLL. F319.M6 D86 1997

Lavender, Abraham D., and Adele S. Newson, Editors
Black communities in transition: voices from south Florida. Published: Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996. LIBRARY WEST and SPECIAL COLL. F317.D2 B5 1996
This work contains reprinted columns and articles from the Miami Herald, most of which deal with the 1960s era and later events.

Fields, Dorothy Jenkins
Colored town, Miami, Florida, 1915: an examination of the manner in which the residents defined their community during this era of Jim Crow. Published: 1996. SPECIAL COLL. F319.M6 F53 1996a Florida History

Fleischmann, Thomas F.
Image and reality: perceptions of early black Miami by the "Miami metropolis", 1896-1900. Published: 1987. SPECIAL COLL. F.2 M61 F596i Florida History

Evans, Arthur S. and David Lee
Pearl City, Florida: a Black community remembers. Published: Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press; Gainsville, Fla. c1990. Pearl City (Boca Raton, Fla.)--History. LIBRARY WEST F319.B6 E83 1990 and SPEC COLL. F.2 P16 E92p Florida History

Rouson-Gossett, Vivian Reissland, and C. Spencer Pompey
Like a mighty banyan : contributions of Black people to the history of Palm Beach. Published: Palm Beach County, Fla.: Palm Beach Junior College, 1982 SPECIAL COLL. F.2 P16 L727 Florida History

Orlando Area
Otey, Frank M.
Eatonville, Florida: a brief history of one of America's first freedmen's towns. Published: Winter Park, Fla.: Four-G Pub., c. 1989. SPECIAL COLL. F.2 O63 O87e Florida History
Eatonville was long the home of Nora Zeale Hurston, anthropologist and novelist of the Harlem Renaissance, and was also the study area for her ethnographic work in the 1930s.

Rosewood
D'Orso, Michael
Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood. Publisher: New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1996. LIBRARY WEST and SPECIAL COLL. F319.R67 D67
Rosewood remains one of the most infamous massacres in Florida history. New material continues to come out as part of an effort to build a history exhibit at the site.

A Documented History of the Incident Which Occured at Rosewood, Florida, in January, 1923. Florida Board of Regents, with Maxine D. Jones, Larry E. Rivers, David R. Colburn, R. Tom Dye, and William R. Rogers. Publisher: Tallahassee: Florida Board of Regents, 1993. LIBRARY WEST F319.R67 D621 and SPECIAL COLL. F354 C81r
There is also a videotape of testimony and interviews related to this document.

Tampa/St. Petersburg
Brady, Rowena Ferrell
Things remembered: an album of African Americans in Tampa. Published: Tampa, Fla.: University of Tampa Press, 1997. SPECIAL COLL. F319.T2 T47 1997 Florida History
Primarily a picture history of the Tampa community.

Ingalls, Robert P.
Urban Vigilantes in the New South: Tampa, 1882-1936. Publisher: Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988. LIBRARY WEST F319.T2 I64 and SPECIAL COLL. f.2 T15 I44u

Phillips, Evelyn Newman
An ethnohistorical analysis of the political economy of ethnicity among African Americans in St. Petersburg, Florida. Published: 1994. SPECIAL COLL. F319.S24 P54x 1994a Florida History

Fleming, Douglas L.
Toward integration microform: the course of race relations in St. Petersburg, 1868 to 1963. Published: 1973. SPECIAL COLL. film 122-R Florida History

Greenbaum, Susan D.
Afro-Cubans in Ybor City: a centennial history. Published: Tampa, Fla.: 1986 SPECIAL COLL. F.2 T15 G798a Florida History

Tallahassee
Rabby, Glenda Alice
The pain and the promise: the struggle for civil rights in Tallahassee, Florida. Published: Athens: University of Georgia Press, c. 1999. LIBRARY WEST F319.T14 R33 1999

St. Augustine
Colburn, David R.
Racial change and community crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980. Published: Gainesville: University of Florida Press, c. 1991. LIBRARY WEST F319.S2 C65 1991 and SPEC COLL. F.2 S11 C685r Florida History
 

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Updated September 25, 2001