This Was Jonestown
Former slaves founded Orlando’s first African American community about 1880, when Sam Jones and his wife, Penny, settled along the banks of Fern Creek, about a mile east of Orlando’s downtown. Orlando’s promise of growth and prosperity attracted other African Americans hoping to find new lives in Florida.
Preparing for a Landmark Exhibition
History Center staff are preparing a major exhibition that will open just weeks before the 2020 national election and will look back a century to Election Day 1920 in Orange County – telling the story of the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history, along with its aftermath.
Chief Wilson and the Jones High School Band
Working against the odds, teenagers and their band leader became effective goodwill ambassadors for Orlando’s African American community in the days before the Civil Rights Movement.
Father Nelson Pinder and the Jones High School Class of 1962
Father Pinder led the fight to integrate Orlando’s restaurants and lunch counters, stores, playgrounds, parks, and schools. He helped to persuade the Orlando Sentinel to eliminate its “Negro Section” and to cover African Americans in the main edition of the paper.
The Crooms Family: A Legacy of Education
The Crooms’ legacy of education lives on. Distinguished alumni of the Hopper Academy and the Crooms Academy include the author/anthropologist Zora Neal Hurston; U.S. Rep. Alcee L. Hastings; and George Allen, the first black graduate of the University of Florida’s law school.
Gus Henderson: Crusading Voice for Voters and Newspaper Pioneer
Gus Henderson was the embodiment of the “self-made man”; from his humble beginnings, he became one of the South’s most eloquent editorialists and left an indelible mark on Central Florida history.
Orlando’s First Hospital and the Rivalry That Transformed a Community
Being sick or injured in early 20th-century Orlando was a much different experience than it is today. If you could not afford to pay a doctor to make a house call, you might have found yourself in a lantern-lit hospital ward, cooled only with fans blowing over crushed ice.
Inaugural Women’s History Breakfast Honors Mary McLeod Bethune
On March 12, the Orange County Regional History Center presents its inaugural Women’s History Month Breakfast with a program honoring Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), the legendary Daytona Beach educator who is hailed as one of our nation’s most powerful advocates for civil rights and suffrage.
Screening of “Marching Forward” Tells Inspiring Orlando Story
In honor of Black History Month, Mayor Jerry L. Demings and the History Center proudly presents a special showing of the award-winning documentary film “Marching Forward.”
Historical Society to honor Fairolyn Livingston
The Historical Society of Central Florida will present its 2019 Donald A. Cheney Award to Fairolyn H. Livingston, chief historian of the Hannibal Square Heritage Center in Winter Park. The presentation is slated for 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 5, at the Orange County Regional History Center.