In celebration of Black History Month, we bring you a moment in Black History in Southwest Florida.
Sanibel Colored School, also known as Sanibel School, is a U.S. National Registered Historic school located in Sanibel, Florida.
It was once a Baptist church, built around 1915 and became the only Colored School on Sanibel Island.
Church builder James Johnson allowed black families from the island and nearby areas to educate their children there starting in about 1924. In 1929 Lee County bought the building from the Florida Baptist Convention for about $1,500.
The school faced challenges due to hurricanes and a decreasing island population.
The Sanibel School became the first in Lee County and one of the first in Florida or the South to integrate. One year ahead of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Today, The Sanibel Colored School is one of only three remaining historic school buildings for black children in Lee County and is located on a corner lot at the intersection of Tarpon Bay and Island Inn roads near the southern end of Sanibel Island.
The old school is on Sanibel's Historic Register and the National Register of Historic Places.
In celebration of Black History Month, we bring you a moment in Southwest Florida Black History.
Veronica S. Shoemaker Boulevard is named after a Fort Myers trailblazer for social, political and educational change.
Shoemaker was born in 1929 in Dunbar. The daughter of a preacher, she was one of 11 children, living in a home her father built.
From an early age Shoemaker fought for civil rights. At Dunbar High School, she organized PTA meetings to give a voice to African American students and parents. She was known for her tenacious persistence, dedication and 'never give up' mind set.
Shoemaker first ran for public office in 1968. After many attempts and through resilient persistence, in 1982 she finally won the Ward 2 City Council seat for Fort Myers.
She was the first African American to serve on the Fort Myers City Council and the first black ever elected to office in Fort Myers. Shoemaker advocated for fair wages, equal education and voting rights. She served on the city council until 2007.
Her legacy also includes the Veronica Shoemaker Florist on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
One of the wealthiest African American men in Punta Gorda was George Brown.
Brown moved there from Charleston, SC. He owned and transported phosphate on barges on the Peace River. He also co-owned the Brown & Miller shipyard. In 1916, Brown launched the Cleveland Marine Steam Ways turning sailboats into steam.
Brown is recognized as one of the first equal opportunity employers in Punta Gorda, and in the state of Florida. Because he employed whites as well as blacks during the times of Jim Crow laws and segregation.
It's said that Brown owned half of Punta Gorda through investment property. In 1924, he sold a parcel of land to the newly formed Charlotte County for the first Charlotte County courthouse.
A mural dedicated to him overlooks the property today.
If an historic building could talk... what would it say?
McCollum Hall, on the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. and Cranford Avenue in Dunbar, was considered the crown jewel of entertainment and commerce for area African Americans. It was also listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book guide.
The hall was built in 1938 by black businessman Clifford McCollum Sr. and his wife Gertrude.
During World War II black servicemen were entertained in the hall, where legendary musicians such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louie Armstrong and B.B. King performed.
The USO (United Service Organizations) hosted events at the Hall for both black and white servicemen and other patrons. The space was segregated by a rope. But when the dancing started, the rope came down.
The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and on Florida's Black Heritage Trail.
Restoration efforts are in the works to bring the famous building back to life.
Harry T. Moore was an early martyr for the1950s Civil Rights Movement.
He was born in 1905 in the Florida Panhandle, and grew up with his schoolteacher aunts in Jacksonville. They nurtured his love of learning.
Moore and his wife Harriette graduated from Bethune Cookman College and were schoolteachers.
He fought for equal rights through his leadership of the NAACP, registering a record number of Black voters, investigating lynchings, and advocating for equal pay for African American school teachers.
On the couple’s 25th anniversary on Christmas Day in 1951, their Mims Florida home was bombed. A bomb was placed beneath the floor joists directly under their bed, both died from the blast. They were not dead when they were found in the rubble but the local and closest hospital was for “Whites Only” and would not permit them to be treated there. Harry died from his injuries before they could get the thirty miles to the nearest “Black” hospital and Harriette died nine days later.
The case went unsolved for decades, but in 2006 forensic evidence found that the Moores were victims of a conspiracy by exceedingly violent members of a Central Florida Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan.
Langston Hughes wrote a poem about the incident…writing in part…
“It seems that I hear Harry Moore. From the earth his voice cries, No bomb can kill the dreams I hold--For freedom never dies! I will not stop! I will not stop--For freedom never dies!”
Their home is now the Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex in Mims, FL.
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