A few, perhaps little known, facts about St. Augustine‘s place in American Black history: when the city was founded in September of 1565, free and enslaved Africans stepped ashore with the Spanish crew of explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who went on to become Florida’s first governor.
In October 1687, the first recorded group of fugitives who were escaping British slavery arrived at the city gate, asking to be accepted into the “true faith.” They were the first of hundreds of enslaved people who would seek sanctuary in Spanish Florida, creating an early version of the Underground Railroad that ran south instead of north. This eventually led to the founding of Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in the United States. Lincolnville Historic District, originally called “Africa” or “Little Africa” was founded in 1866 by Black Americans.
Nearly a hundred years later, with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act looming, St. Augustine became the site of protests and counter-protests involving the flashpoint topic of racial integration. In fact, many historians believe the law would not have passed were it not for the resistance and courage shown by activists—including Martin Luther King, Jr.—in St. Augustine.
In an effort to make the extensive history of African-descended people in the oldest city accessible to all, Visit St. Augustine has created an all-new Black History app—putting history in the palm of your hand. Created in collaboration with Florida’s Historic Coast, this application is available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store now.
New App Discovers & Uncovers Black History in St. Augustine
The app’s functions and content seamlessly integrate history with real life exploration (including a “What’s Nearby” tool that uses the cell phone’s location services to show users nearby historical sites). Research is conducted through reputable sources, including articles and books by historians from across the world. Foundational research databases include Florida Memory, the Library of Congress, the Civil Rights Library of St. Augustine (maintained by Flagler College), and Enslaved.org (maintained by the National Endowment for the Humanities).
“The Visit St. Augustine team is grateful to everyone who has collaborated with us to make the release possible,” said Cheyenne Koth Leahy, one of the writers of the new app, in a media announcement. “This initial project stage has shown us that St. Augustine’s historical and cultural organizations exist in an ecosystem that thrives when we communicate and celebrate with each other. We are excited to share the Black History App—and help it evolve together.”
The St. Augustine Black History App has four main sections—Events Timeline, Historical People, Historical Places, Historical Topics. The information within is inter-connected, allowing any user to delve deeper. Visit St. Augustine will update the app’s features and content on a quarterly basis with new content and functionality as history continues to be discovered and uncovered.
For more information, visit floridashistoriccoast.com.
