Tag Archives: Pedro Mendez

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

Pedrica Mendez’s House

Posted on September 26, 2017 | 1 comment

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When Padrica was a little girl in the 1940s, the Cuban community in Jacksonville surrounded her and her family with love and a yet larger sense of family.

One night as she left the opera in Rome, a photographer snapped her picture, wrote, “in omaggio alla sua bellezza,” or “in homage of your beauty,” on the back of the photograph, and gave it to her.

The fire that consumed the great two-story house next door jumped sparks at Padrica’s house.

Still what most struck Padrica were the cadences she heard in the Orthodox music of ancient Ethiopia that reminded her dearly, tearfully, of rhymes and end-lines from old “Negro spirituals.”

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Tagged Alvin Ailey, Bert Williams, Carmen Jones, Durkeeville, Ed Austin, Enrico Caruso, Frank Nero, Havana Night Club, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeoTonyaa Weathersbee, Jennifer Chase, Joel McEachin, Josephine Baker, LaVilla, Manuel Rivera, Manuel's Tap Room, Mariano Stabile, MaVynee Betsch, Padrica Mendez, Pedro Mendez, Queen of Sheba, River City Renaissance, Solomon Shad, Sugar Hill, The Two Spot, Tim Gilmore, Victor Banjo, Virginia King