Central – Section 2.5: African American & Multicultural Legacies
The historic water tower stands tall in Eatonville—the oldest incorporated all-Black municipality in the United States, founded in 1887.
The history of African-descended people in Florida also informs a large part of the state’s heritage and lives on in too many places to name, but you can start by exploring the landmarks of Eatonville, north of Orlando, the oldest all-Black town in the U.S., founded in 1887 by 27 Black men.
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Those heading to Daytona Beach will find a classic American foursquare house built in the early 1900s—it was the home of Mary McLeod Bethune from 1913 until her death in 1955. Born to formerly enslaved parents, Bethune achieved nationwide notice for her success in establishing the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School (now Bethune-Cookman University) and went on to play an important role in the advance of education and civil rights, particularly in the years between the world wars.
The Mary McLeod Bethune Home in Daytona Beach, where the civil rights icon lived from 1913 until her passing in 1955. The home is now a National Historic Landmark located on the campus of Bethune-Cookman University. Photo by Michael Rivera, via Flickr (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Farther south along the east coast, the Sebastian River Area is well known as a haven for ecotourism, but history lives here as well. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, as Spanish galleons headed home loaded with treasures from the New World, pirates posed a risk but so did unkind waters and ferocious storms. When disaster struck and a ship went down, the treasure hunting began. One of the most successful of these seekers in the world, Mel Fisher, opened a permanent museum here in 1992, filled with artifacts recovered from the ocean’s depths.