The Lincolnville Museum

St. Augustine, FL
March 24th, 2022

The Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center is the only museum in St. Augustine that is dedicated solely to black history and culture. It recounts around 450 years of black history in Florida and America. They host many events at the museum, including jazz events to honor its involvement in black culture. It is housed in the historic Excelsior building, which was the first public black high school in St. Johns County. Their mission statement is as follows: "The LMCC’s mission is to preserve, promote and perpetuate over 450 years of the African American story through the arts, educational programs, lectures, live performances, and exhibits."

Learn more at: The Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center

Exterior Photo 1

Exterior Photo 2

Artifact 1

The above image is at first glance a jar of dirt. However, this jar of dirt was gathered from different lynching sites across the country in order to raise awareness about racial terror and generational trauma. The Equal Justice Initiative is collecting this first and working to raise historical and commemorative markers in the areas where lynchings used to occur.

Artifact 2

This image was taken on May 20th, 1964 by Associated Press Photograph. 1964 was the height of civil rights movements and protests in St. Augustine. The image above occurred after Dr. Martin Luther King encouraged picketers to march downtown in St. Augustine in protest of segregation and KKK violence.

Image In Conversation 1 

The above image is Lizzie Robinson Jenkins from Archer, Florida. She is the descendant of a survivor of the Rosewood massacre that occurred on January 1st, 1923. This massacre was one of the worst racially motivated killings in Florida's history and went unreported for decades. Lizzie visited my hometown of Citrus County, FL a few years ago to do a discussion of who she is and what she plans on doing with her foundation, The Rosewood Foundation. This discussion inspired me to write a 14-page research paper for my IB extended essay and has stuck with me ever since. In her discussion, she talked about how she aims to open a museum in Archer, Florida to remember Rosewood. She has participated in many soil gathering ceremonies, including one in Newberry. In order to raise money for the Rosewood Foundation, she has sold jars of dirt from these sites with the intention that they will be returned to the museum once it opens. She has dedicated her life to remembering Rosewood, and I have included a few links for more information to support her cause.

Rosewood Through Her Eyes

Rosewood Massacre

Image in Conversation 2

Zora Neale Hurston was an author and anthropologist. Her books focused on black heritage and culture and she is my favorite Harlem Rennaisance author. Her career in anthropology also focused on black culture and folklore and she dedicated her life to helping her community. The artifacts in the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center reminded me of Hurston and her contributions to black history, as she also focused on the preservation of her culture.

Literature in Conversation

[Lukao] by Craig Santos Perez

"Despite the nurse-midwives creditable record of services, their role in assisting with home births in Guam has disappeared, owing to a combination of factors such as development of the U.S. medical care

model, the end of midwifery training, new licensure requirements, increased numbers of physicians, and the opening of new hospital facilities. The focus on the birthing process shifted away from families and home to an institutionalized medical setting." Karen A. Cruz from the Pattern of Gram: Their Story and legacy.

    I highlighted this portion of [Lukao] because it begins to speak about Perez's culture being robbed from his native land. The US robbed Hawaii of its birthing practices and began to regulate them to their own standards, and eventually that part of his family's culture was lost. This is very similar to how the US exploited and erased black culture, which prompted people like Lizzie Jenkins and Zora Neale Hurston to take a stand and preserve what they can of their black heritage. 

                                                  Creative Component 

Description: journal entry written on digital lined paper 

I wrote a short journal entry from the point of view of a young girl excited to finally be able to attend high school in her town. This was in response to the Lincolnville Museum, as it used to be Excelsior High School which was the first black high school in St. Augustine. She is excited to be able to attend "school 2", as it was previously known, without having to commute far to get an education anymore. I imagine this was a relief for many families, as commutes can be long and expensive, and were often dangerous for black people at the time as segregation was still an active expectation. Desegregation of schools occurred about 30 years later.