Day: March 31, 2022

SARASOTA, Fla. – A home in Sarasota‘s Rosemary District will soon carry the legacy of the city’s first Black community. Plans are in the works to transform it into an African American cultural arts center and history museum, but first the home has to be relocated.

“This house was the homestead of Mr. Leonard Reid who was a pioneer in the Sarasota Black community, and Sarasota in general,” explained Walter Gilbert, the senior director of diversity and inclusion at Selby Gardens.

Leonard Reid helped establish and settle the area, once called Overtown. His daughters would grow up, working to educate the children of the community.

As downtown Sarasota grew, developments pushed into Overtown, which pushed residents move north to Newtown.

“They need to know the history behind it. We have had to fight for everything that we have gotten,” said Odessa C. Butler, a Newtown resident.

The city will lease it to the African American Cultural Coalition for the Sarasota African American Art Center and History Museum.

“It’s important because of the activities we are going to have here. Many activities for the entire Sarasota community that celebrate African American history,” said Vickie Oldham, the CEO and president of Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition.

The coalition will continue to tell the history of those who formed Overtown and Newtown within the home’s walls. 
They have plans to expand into a larger facility.

Read More Here

Deep within Sarasota, Florida lies the historic neighborhood of Newtown, a community where thousands of African American residents flocked in the early 1900s. The Black community built their own safe haven in the quaint seaside town after Jim Crow Laws enforced racial segregation throughout the South. Formed in 1914, the neighborhood was once home to a number of bustling Black entrepreneurs who unified to develop Newtown’s thriving business district, allowing the community to become self-sustaining. When segregation and racism posed a threat to the Black community’s education and their ability to receive crucial social services, Newtownites banded together to build their own schools, churches, grocery stores and social systems, boldly reclaiming their freedom. Resilience and faith were undoubtedly at the core of Newtown’s indomitable spirit.

While the legacy of Sarasota’s forgotten Black mecca has largely been hidden from history and textbooks, one cultural historian is on a mission to document Newtown’s rich past and uncover the neighborhood heroes who stood on the front lines of freedom to ensure a better future for the next generation.

The story of Newtown started with a segregated community called Overtown, Sarasota’s first Black hub filled with flourishing entrepreneurs, said the CEO and President of Sarasota’s African American Cultural Coalition, Vickie Oldham, who has been stitching together Newtown’s history piece by piece.

“It was located near the downtown area. Our people were the early pioneers who worked in the homes of the wealthy as domestics, as cooks, as gardeners, so there was already a self-sustaining community in Overtown,” she told MADAMENOIRE over zoom.

Located on Central Avenue and today’s Sixth Street, Overtown swelled with Black-owned markets, a busy movie theater, and merchandise stores that provided the community with everything they needed to survive. However, sadly, because of Jim Crow Laws, the residents of Overtown were pushed to the north side of Sarasota, but they used their skills as cooks, developers, and harvesters to build up the community of Newtown, and they worked tirelessly to keep the neighborhood thriving.

Read More Here

Sarasota, Florida’s white sand beaches and crystal-clear waters draw visitors from far and wide, but they weren’t always so welcoming.

“Few of our guests, our international and domestic tourists who come here, understand why these beaches are open to Black and brown people from everywhere in the world,” said Vickie Oldham, who chronicled 100 years of local Black history for her hometown.

• Read More Here

Vickie Oldham wants Sarasotans to understand the courage and dignity of the African American residents who built Sarasota’s infrastructure.

Black laborers built the railroad that ran through downtown Sarasota, Oldham noted. They helped clear snake-infested land on the barrier islands to ready it for development. And some worked for John Ringling’s circus.  

Such stories will be featured in the upcoming Sarasota African American Art Center and History Museum. 

“I feel that in sharing these stories, certainly through a museum, it boosts my pride level in my community,” said Oldham, who is leading the effort to build the museum. “It gives me a sense of pride and place. It lets me know what our ancestors and the pioneers did.”

Read More on Herald Tribune