Tag Archives: Clara White

Hansontown Lies Beneath FSCJ’s Downtown Campus

Posted on October 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Hansontown lies beneath Florida State College at Jacksonville’s Downtown Campus, figuratively and, in part, literally.

When Florida Junior College consolidated its downtown locations into the new Downtown Campus in the late 1970s, it eliminated the last of Hansontown, a century-old neighborhood built for freed slaves and former U.S. Colored Troops.

Some FSCJ leaders now espouse views on urbanism much like those the college abandoned by building Downtown Campus.

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Tagged Bethel Baptist Church, Camilla Thompson, Central Grammar and High School, Clara White, Clara White Mission, Cynthia Bioteau, Daniel Dustin Hanson, Douglas Anderson, Downtown Campus, Durkeeville, Eartha White, Ed Napier, FCCJ, FJC, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Florida Junior College, Florida StarSt. Joseph Missionary Baptist Church, Florida State College at Jacksonville, FSCJ, FSCJ Archive, Hansontown, Henry John Klutho, Jennifer Grey, Joseph Augustus Baldwin, LaVilla, Orange Street, Springfield, Sugar Hill, Sugar Underwood, U.S. Colored Troops

The Clara White Mission Remains the Humanitarian Heart of Jax

Posted on February 26, 2017 | 1 comment

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If the goodness, kindness, and mercy enacted in a particular building, on a certain quadrant of earth, can accrue across the years, then the Clara White Mission should be a pilgrimage site and 613 Ashley Street in LaVilla is sacred ground.

At the turn of 1974, Eartha was the tiny, bird-like, Old-Testament-but-New-Testament saint at the center of town. She died in January. I was born in June. I so wish I could have met her.

When I saw Eartha White look out at me from the open doors of Roosevelt Watson III’s major artwork, I saw her as I’d never seen her but also as she’d visited me, angelically and ghostly, when I’d most needed to find her before.

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Tagged "Storehouse for the People", Adam English, anti-lynching, Ashley Street, Bethel Baptist, Bijou Theater, Black Bottom Dance, Bojangles, Charles H. Loeb, Clara White, Clara White Mission, Colored Airdome, Eartha Mary Magdalene White, Eartha White, Father Henry Harrison, Frank Crowd, Franklin Baby Seals, Globe Theater, Guy Stockton, Hansontown, Henry John Klutho, Hollywood Music Store, In Search of Eartha White, Jacksonville Rounders Dance, jaxpsychogeo, Jim Crow, Ju'Coby Pittman, Lafayette White, LaVilla, Ma Rainey, Merry Hearts' Club, Michelle Calloway, Mollie Chapman, Nipsey Russell, Perversion magazine, Pittsburgh Courier, Richard McKissick, Roosevelt Watson III, Shawana Brooks, Squire English, Stockton family Jacksonville, Tim Gilmore