This weekend, about 40 people took a bus tour of significant Black historical sites around Central Florida ahead of Juneteenth, the day June 19, 1865, marked the day the last slaves in the United States learned they were freed.
Juneteenth bus tour kicks off in Central Florida
The goal of the Juneteenth Central Florida Black History Bus Tour was simple: to highlight important history that Floridians may not learn in school.
Juneteenth Central Florida Black History Tour Bus.
That’s why 13-year-old Kaitlyn Hurd took the tour with her mother, Yolanda Powell, even though it was a summer Saturday: to learn some history.
“I’ve always been a history buff, a history nerd, so learning about my state that I knew very little about was an eye-opening experience for me. It was life-changing,” Hurd said.
Kaitlyn will be in eighth grade at Southwest Middle School in Palm Bay, and she said she hasn’t learned much about Black history outside of nationally known figures.
“We just learned about the foundational events that happened years and years ago, with Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. This is the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this. We’ve never seen anything like this in Florida,” Hurd said.
I met the mother and daughter during a tour stop at the Eatonville Chamber of Commerce, the oldest black-founded municipality in the United States.
The tour group had already visited Ocoee, the site of a massacre of black residents in 1920, and Washington Shores, one of Orlando’s first black communities.
Florida law requires schools to teach black history, but people are concerned about how much of it should be taught.
Last month, the Florida Board of Education reapproved Black history standards that teach children that “enslaved people developed skills that, in some cases, could be applied for personal benefit.”
AP African-American History classes are still banned in the state, and Stop-Walk laws restrict teachers from talking about race and gender in K-12 classrooms.
From left to right, Yolanda Powell, Charlotte Kendall and Kaitlyn Hurd took part in the bus tour.
That’s why experts like Dr. Eric Smoe of Rollins College say bus tours like this one, and classes like the one he teaches at Agape Church in Orlando, are so important — both ways to close the gap in education about Black history.
“So, on the one hand, it’s a good thing because it gives us community engagement from scholars that we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Smoa said.
But Smo said this history should be taught entirely in Florida classrooms. He said a one-day tour, a one-day class or a workshop cannot replace a semester-long course taught by a certified history teacher or college professor.
“It’s fun to see what people are doing. I’ve participated in it myself and I think it’s great that they’re actively engaged. But I think it’s a shame that we have experts in the classroom and they can’t pass that knowledge on to students,” Smo said.
Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education said Black history is still taught in Florida.
Floridians are struggling with state education policy
Back on the tour, Robert and Anna Beck, who moved to Florida from Illinois, said they couldn’t imagine their children and grandchildren not learning about black history. The thought leaves Robert almost speechless.
Robert and Anna Beck are a married couple who took part in a Black History Bus Tour.
“That’s America. That’s who we are. What don’t we know about it? We have to know about all our fellow Americans, black, purple, yellow, white, and of course we have to know about each other. I don’t want my children and my grandchildren to be ignorant of as much as possible,” Beck said.
Anna said she loves living in Florida but is disappointed with the current state of black history education in the state.
“We should be progressing, not going backwards like what’s happening here in Florida. I love this state. I love the beauty of it. I love Florida. I’m so glad I moved here, but that part needs improvement,” Beck said.
Tour mate Charlotte Kendall agreed.
“Knowing history is very important to me, and my dream is that one day it won’t just be black history. It’ll be the history of all of us,” Kendall said.
and the Eatonville Bus Depot at the Eatonville Chamber of Commerce. Participants were encouraged to take home materials about the town and upcoming events.
Where do we go from here?
His mother, Yolanda Powell, said she hopes there will be more Central Florida Black History Tours in the coming months and years so families can learn about this history.
“It literally opened my eyes and I learned so much. I would love to go back next year and hopefully she’ll invite us back next year,” Powell said.
Patricia Bebe of Paving Pathways Florida, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing underserved families in the state, and Lavonda Wilder, director of the Eatonville Chamber of Commerce, helped coordinate the tour.
Bebe said the bus tours will continue, but this one is just the first step in raising awareness of the stories and history of Black and brown people in the state.
“Black, white, Hispanic and Native American history is all American history, but we know that it’s often hard to elevate brown and black and BIPOC populations in America, so with this piece I want to elevate those contributions,” Bebe said.
Wilder added that through daily and weekly events at the center, like this tour, the focus is to ensure the history of places like Eatonville is brought to the forefront throughout the year.
Lavonda Wilder, president of the Eatonville Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the tour to her town.
She hopes the state’s first Black history museum will be built in her town and attract visitors from around the country and world to learn about Black history in Florida.
The Florida Black History Museum Task Force still needs to consider the final results of a land survey that will determine, among other things, which location would be best suited for the museum.
“If we don’t talk about history, what happens? History dies. We have our phones in our hands, we’re hooked to our phones, we don’t research anything, we don’t read anymore. If we don’t tell our stories, who will tell our stories?” Wilder asked.
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