6 Black cultural heritage sites to visit in town

In honor of Black History Month, here are six historic African American cultural heritage destinations in Jacksonville to visit.

Henry L. Aaron Field at James P. Small Memorial Stadium

1701 Myrtle Ave. N.

Long before the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville or Wolfson Park, J.P. Small Memorial Stadium was the home of Jacksonville’s professional baseball community. Amazingly, it’s still standing today. Once called Durkee Field and dating back to 1912, this ballpark once served as the home of the Negro League’s Jacksonville Red Caps, Florida’s first major league sports team.

Some of the first teams to play here include the Jacksonville Tars and the Jacksonville Athletics, a team of which James Weldon Johnson was a member. Baseball legends who played here over the years include Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Henry Aaron. The stadium’s baseball museum captures the rich history of the sport in Jacksonville and the surrounding Durkeeville neighborhood. The baseball museum and another nearby museum preserve and spread the rich history of the historic Durkeeville neighborhood. Both are operated by the Durkeeville Historical Society.

Kingsley Plantation

11676 Palmetto Ave.

Kingsley Plantation was established by South Carolinian John “Lighting” McQueen with 300 enslaved Africans in 1793. The property was turned over to Georgia’s John McIntosh in 1804. McIntosh leased the property to Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. in 1814 who then acquired it in 1817.

Considered “one of Florida’s most flamboyant slaveholders,” Kingsley purchased and married Anna Madgigine Jai, a Wolof girl from present-day Senegal, in 1806. He eventually grew to depend on Anna to run the plantation in his absence. Crops produced at the plantation included sea island cotton, okra, oranges and rice.

Kingsley passed in 1843 and what he left to African family members was quickly contested on racial grounds by his white relatives. But in 1846, Anna Madgigine Jai accomplished the unthinkable in the antebellum South: In a Duval County courtroom, she successfully argued her case for ownership within the dictates of the Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain that ceded Florida to the U.S. in 1819.

Sold after her death, the plantation at Fort George Island was briefly controlled by the Freedmen’s Bureau and under private ownership until being acquired by the state of Florida in 1955. With many of its structures still surviving on an isolated sea island, the property was acquired by the National Park Service, becoming a part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in 1991.

Ritz Theatre & Museum

829 N. Davis St.

The Ritz Theatre and Museum is a Downtown Jacksonville cultural destination that highlights the city’s rich Black culture, heritage and history. The mission of the Ritz is to “research, record, and preserve the material and artistic culture of African American life in Northeast Florida and the African Diaspora, and present it in an educational or entertaining format, showcasing the many facets that make up the historical and cultural legacy of this community.”

Built by Neil Witchen, Sr., the Ritz Theatre originally opened its doors to the public as a movie theater in September 1929. It served Black Jacksonville moviegoers before closing for good in 1971. As a part of the River City Renaissance plan that destroyed much of the surrounding LaVilla neighborhood, the theater was partially demolished and rebuilt into a $4.2 million 426-seat theater and museum dedicated to African American history and life in Northeast Florida and which hosts a series of traveling exhibits. The 32,000-square-foot museum and performing arts venue opened its doors on September 30, 1999.

Editorial by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com