Commemorating the nearly 2 million Africans who perished in the Middle Passage of the transatlantic human trade Documenting the slave/middle passage ports in the United States and to include the 4 Middle Passage ports in Florida. They are Pensacola, Amelia Island, St Augustine and Mosquito Coast. The goal is to educate all communities to the vital role that Africans and their descendants played in the development of both local areas and nations Partnering with historical and cultural societies, academic institutions, churches, visitor and tourist bureaus, and community organizations to promote African Diaspora history and culture, especially related to the Middle Passage

1. 
Africans’ Arrival
at
US Oldest City

2. 

3. 
The African portion of this story is complex.
It involves free and enslaved Black people, who
were sailors, carpenters, cattlemen, bakers,
soldiers, artisans, builders;
but wait we’re getting ahead of ourselves!
Let’s start at the “beginning”

4. 

5. 

6. 
At that time, there was little distinction
between church and state so having sighted
the land on August 28, 1565 the feast day of
St Augustine, who incidentally was a noted
North African religious philosopher, the
settlement was named in his honor.

7. 

8. 
Over the next 200 years
the status of Africans
would vary.

9. 
This military outpost would be caught up
in the international politics of territorial
control, especially between the Spanish
and the British.

10. 

11. 
At other times a middle passage port where captives
were delivered as a labor force most suited for survival
in the sub-tropical conditions.

12. 
Unfortunately, America’s oldest
port city routinely has been
portrayed in a lop sided manner,
emphasizing Spanish or British
heritage and little else. We all know
that is never accurate when
describing a seaport.

13. 
More importantly for us,
Africans and their
descendants were pretty
much eliminated or cherry
picked into the narrative.

14. 

15. 

16. 
,
diverse faith representatives, and a
traditional libation to honor
unnamed and unknown African
ancestors – those who died during
the Middle Passage to the New
World and those who survived and
contributed to Florida.

17. 
Saturday, February 7, 2015
to honor this history and celebrate the
lives of people who for so long have been
forgotten. The African heritage has made
this city special as the first Underground
Railroad, the first legal settlement of free
blacks, the burial place of Black Civil War
soldiers, the final impetus for Civil Rights
Act of 1964, and more.

18. 

19. 

20. 
With Thanks
“First Time I Saw Big Water”
Music from the PBS series Africans in America by Orlando
Bagwell
Composed and performed by
Bernice Johnson Reagan and Toshi Reagan