Tag Archives: Jim Crow

Stringbeans May and the Birth of the Blues in Black Vaudeville

Posted on October 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

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Just before his neck was broken in Jacksonville, Butler “Stringbeans” May was the hottest Black entertainer in the country. He’d just turned 23. Critics called him “eccentric” and “smutty.” It was Stringbeans who made the Blues first rise in Black Vaudeville, but he never recorded and never copyrighted his hits. Details of his death remain a mystery.

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Tagged "Pray for the Lights to Go Out", A Bunch of Blues, Alan Lomax, Alf Kelly, Ashley Street Blues, Ballin' the Jack, Bijou Theater, Black Masonic Temple, Black Masonic Temple Jacksonville, Blind Blake, Broadway Rastus, Buddy Bradley, Butler "String Beans" May, Butler May, Charlie Johnson and His Paradise Band, Chicago Defender, Clara White Mission, Colored Airdome, Dave Seroff, David Sager, Eartha Mary Magdalene White, Eartha White, Elgin Movements, Ellen Goodloe, Erwin Bosman, Florence McClain, Frank Montgomery, Genaro Urso, Globe Theater, Gus Haenschen, Hattie Akers, Hillman Pratt Funeral Home, Incorporated Prince Hall Affiliated, Indianapolis Freeman, Irvin Miller, J. Paul Wyer, Jean Stearns, Jelly Roll Morton, Jessie May Horn, Jim Crow, LaVilla, Leola Wilson, Lubin Company, Lynn Abbott, Ma Rainey, Marshall Stearns, New York Age, Perry Bradford, Rastus Among the Zulus, Robert Johnson, Salem Tutt Whitney, Strand Theater, Stringbeans May, Sweetie Matthews, Sylvester Russell, Tony Langston, W.C. Handy, Will Benbow, Will Benbow’s Chocolate Drops Company, Willis Laurence James, Zip Coon

Walking the Vanished Old Panama Road

Posted on April 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

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The Old Panama Road disappeared beneath the Northside of the city 120 years ago. This story tracks it. It heads north from the murder of Marie Gato, past Club Steppin’ Out, through the diary of a black Civil War soldier reading Lord Byron, a Spanish American War camp teeming with Typhoid Fever and the burning of a sawmill the size of a small town.

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Tagged Alexander St. Clair-Abrams, Andrew Robinson Elementary School, Austin Mann, Austin S. Mann, Bloxham Avenue, Buffalo Avenue, Buffalo Food Store, Camp Bloxham, Charles F. Sibbald, Childe Harold, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Club Steppin' Out, Confederacy, Confederate States of America, Covid-19, Cyrus Brown, E.L. Smith Candy, Eddie Pitzer, Edward Pitzer, El Modelo, Everett Hotel, Evergreen Cemetery, Fairfield, First Coast Automotive, G.W. Wetmore, Gabriel Hidalgo Gato, George W. Clark, Henry John Klutho, Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission, Jacksonville's Architectural Heritage, James Berry, jax psycho geo, Jim Crow, Joel McEachin, John Bigger, José Alejandro Huau, Jose Marti, Lord Byron, Lycurgis Bigger, manatee, Marie Louise Gato, North Springfield, Old Panama Road, Panama Florida, Panama Mills, Panama Park, Panama Park School, Panama Park Track, Pitzer and Bigger, Relaxx Inn, Sanborn Fire Insurance, Sebald Lane, Silver Street, Spanish moss, Springfield, Tim Gilmore, Trout River, Typhoid Fever, United States Colored Troops, USCT, We’re for Jesus House of Prayer, William Dunnington Bloxham

Black Masonic Temple

Posted on December 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

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What these walls have seen! Architects Mark and Sheftall began their own firm in 1912 and with a commission for the grandest building in black Jacksonville. The Black Masonic Temple formed the brick foundation of the black community.

Princess Laura Adorkor Kofi preached her “back to Africa” message here in the 1920s. Future Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Leander Shaw had his offices here in the 1960s. And the tunnels beneath Broad Street would offer protection if Florida’s massacres of black communities at Ocoee, Perry, and Rosewood should spread to Jacksonville.

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Tagged African Lodge no. 459, African Universal Church and Commercial League, Anderson Bank, Black Masonic Temple, C.H. Henry, Central America, Charles Wright, Clara White Mission, D.W. Perkins, Daniel Webster Perkins, Earl Mark, Florida Star, Frank Lloyd Wright, Free and Accepted Masons, Genaro Urso, Gerry Urso, Henry John Klutho, Incorporated Prince Hall Affiliated, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Jim Crow, John H. Dickinson, July Perry, Jurisdiction, Ku Klux Klan, Laura Adorkor Kofi, LaVilla, Lawrence Moman, Leander L. Shaw, Leander Shaw, Leeroy Sheftall, Louis Sullivan, lynching, Marcus Garvey, Mark and Sheftall, Most Worshipful Union Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity, NAACP, Negro Blue Book, Negro World, Ocoee Massacre, Padrica Mendez, Patricia Moman Bell, Pedro Mendez, Perry Massacre, Prairie Style, Prince Hall, Prince Hall freemasonry, Princess Laura Adorkor Kofi, Robert Broward, Rosewood Massacre, Stanton School, State of Florida and Belize, The Crisis, Tillman Valentine, Tim Gilmore, United States Colored Troops, USCT, Wainwright Building

Confederate Park’s “In Memory of our Women of the Southland”

Posted on March 25, 2018 | 1 comment

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She’s the embodiment of a Romantic concept called the Lost Cause. Her rhetorical strength, as an object of art, is that to stand before her and deny the Lost Cause lie is to look her in her loving and noble face and call her a liar before her tender children.

Unfortunately, for the Lost Cause Romantics, history documents the originating words of the Confederates.

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Tagged Alexander Stephens, Allen George Newman, Birth of a Nation, Confederate Park, Confederate Veteran, Eartha White, Jim Crow, Ku Klux Klan, Lost Cause, NAACP, Ocoee Massacre, Reconstruction, Redemption, Stetson Kennedy, Triumph of Peace, Zip Coon

Arlington and Lillian Roads: No ID Required

Posted on July 1, 2017 | 1 comment

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Respectfully, Devonte Shipman asks, “What was it that we did wrong, Officer?” This kind of thing has happened to him before. This time, he’s recording it.

Officer J.S. Bolen says, “You crossed the crosswalk! Against the red hand!” He threatens to put him in jail, calls for backup, and tells Vonte that Florida requires its residents to carry an ID at all times.

As though Bolen understands time in neighborhoods deemed not worth time. As though Bolen understands his position as Vonte Shipman’s public servant.

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Tagged Arlington, Arlington Expressway, Black Lives Matter, Blues Lives Matter, Connell Crooms, Devonte Shipman, Elias Campos, J.S. Bolen, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, jaywalking, Jim Crow, Lillian Road, lynching, Sin City, Tim Gilmore, Timothy James

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