This document provides historical context about the development of Eatonville, Florida by situating it within the aftermath of emancipation, reconstruction, and the rise of Jim Crow segregation in the post-reconstruction South. It discusses the transition from slavery to freedom for African Americans after the Civil War, reconstruction under presidential and congressional rule, the end of reconstruction and rise of redeemer governments, the late 19th century development of racial segregation and discrimination, and early 20th century efforts to establish education and opportunities for African Americans during this difficult period. The document uses images, primary sources, and brief biographies to illustrate these major historical transitions and their impact on the African American experience in Florida.

1. Jump at
the Sun
Eatonville in
Context
Julian C. Chambliss
Professor of History
Coordinator of the Africa and African-American
Studies Program
Rollins College

2. • How do we situate
Eatonville into the
story of New South
development?
– Emancipation &
Reconstruction
– Redeemers & The Black
Experience
– New South / Old South

3. The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1)
EMANCIPATION

4. Thomas Nast, Emancipation (1865)

5. The Fundamental Question
• The Question of
Status….
– Although no longer
slaves…Not Equal to
Whites…..
– African Americans
were citizens of the
United States and
deserved the Rights
and Privileges….
• African Americans Preparing Cotton for Gin at Port
Royal, 1862 (Library of Congress )

6. Frederick Douglass
On What Should Be Done with Freed
Slaves
• “Our answer is, do nothing
with them; mind your
business, and let them mind
theirs. Your doing with them
is their greatest misfortune.
They have been undone by
your doings, and all they now
ask, and really have need of
at your hands, is just to let
them alone. They suffer by
ever interference, and
succeed best by being let
alone.”

7. RECONSTRUCTION

8. The Clansmen in Google Books

9. History on Film (sort of)
• Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Originally titled The Clansman
• Based on Thomas Dixon’s novel of the same name. The
story is subtitled, “A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan”

10. Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867)
• President Andrew Johnson’s Plan
– Pardons would be granted to those taking a loyalty oath
– No pardons would be available to high Confederate officials and
persons owning property valued in excess of $20,000
– A state needed to abolish slavery before being readmitted
– A state was required to repeal its secession ordinance before being
readmitted.

11. From The Papers of Kelly Walker Trimble, [manuscript] 1865, Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia.

13. Congressional Reconstruction 1867-1877
• Republican “Radicals” reacted
to Johnson’s Reconstruction
with fierce reprisal. After a near
impeachment sidelined
Johnson, Republicans passed
Reconstruction Acts that sent
federal troops into the South to
maintain order. They required
former Confederate states to
guarantee black male suffrage,
and made ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment, which
affirmed black people's
citizenship, a condition of
representation in Congress.

14. Scribner's statistical atlas of the United States, showing by graphic methods their present condition and their
political, social and industrial development by Fletcher W. Hewes and Henry Gannett... - Plate 24: Population
(Colored Population)

16. Because blacks in South Carolina vastly outnumbered whites, the newly enfranchised
voters were able to send many African- American representatives to the state assembly,
outnumbered the whites.

17. FLORIDA
Reconstruction

18. • Beginning in 1868,
Reconstruction in
Florida marked the
beginning of
struggle around
social and political
control.
Saint Augustine, Fla. Artillery inside Fort Marion; tents on rampart,
taken between 1861 and 1865

19. The Politics of Dissent in Florida
Harrison Reed
-Faced Opposition from
Democrats & Republicans.
Anti-Reed Fraction attempted to
impeach him in 1868 and Lt.
Governor William H. Gleason
proclaimed himself governor.
Eventually Florida Supreme Court
ruled in Reed’s favor.
William H. Gleason

20. Republican Lawmaker, Josiah
Thomas Walls of Florida, elected
1871. He lost his seat after his
Democrat challenger proved
Republican voter fraud in 1873.
Walls was re-elected in 1873 and
served until 1876. He was the only
African-American representative from
Florida until the 1990s.
Walls fought for internal
improvements for Florida. He also
advocated compulsory education and
economic opportunity for all races:
“We demand that our lives, our
liberties, and our property shall be
protected by the strong arm of our
government, that it gives us the same
citizenship that it gives to those who
it seems would … sink our every
hope for peace, prosperity, and
happiness into the great sea of
oblivion.”Josiah Thomas Walls

21. • Joseph E. Lee, (Jacksonville,
Florida) Born in Philadelphia,
he graduated from the
Institute for Colored Youth in
the early 1860s and studied
law at Howard University.
• He was admitted to the
Florida bar in 1873 and was
one of the first blacks to
practice in the state.
• During his lifetime he was a
municipal judge, minister,
collector of customs and
internal revenue.
• He was a member of the
Florida House from 1875-
1880 and the Florida Senate
from 1881-82.

22. REDEEMERS AND THE BLACK
EXPERIENCE
After Reconstruction

23. THE ELECTION OF 1877

25. "We regard the
Reconstruction Acts
(so called) of
Congress as
usurpations, and
unconstitutional,
revolutionary, and
void." - Democratic
Platform

27. "The Union as it
Was” Harper's
Weekly, 1874

28. The South Redeemed

29. The Redeemed South?
"Everything Points to a Democratic Victory This Fall”

30. NEW SOUTH / OLD SOUTH
Creating Jim Crow Segregation

31. • Exodusters
Movement
– Almost 20,000 blacks
left Mississippi and
Louisiana for the
frontiers of Kansas,
Nebraska, Colorado,
and Oklahoma.

32. Alfred Brockenbrough Williams,
The Liberian Exodus. An Account
of the Voyage of the First
Emigrants in the Bark "Azor," and
Their Reception at Monrovia, with a
Description of Liberia--Its Customs
and Civilization, Romances and
Prospects. (Charleston, S. C.: The News and
Courier Book Presses, 1878.)
Liberian Exodus Association, The Liberian
Exodus. First Voyage of the Azor. Liberia a
Delightful Country. Climate, Soil and Productions.
Character of the People in Liberia; and How They
Live. Full Information of the Exodus Movement.
(Charleston, S. C.: W. J. Oliver's Print, 1878.)

34. W.E.B. Dubois
“… the police system of the
South was originally designed
to keep track of all Negroes, not
simply of criminals; and when
the Negroes were freed and the
whole South was convinced of
the impossibility of free Negro
labor, the first and almost
universal device was to use the
courts as a means of re-
enslaving the blacks.”
– Souls of Black Folks (1903)

37. Sanford, Florida 1880s
In 1883, white workers in Sanford
responded to poor working
condition by killing a black
worker who accepted lower
wages.

38. • Educational
Foundations
– Peabody
Education Fund
– John F. Slater
Fund
– General Education
Board (GEB)
• Churches and
Benevolent
Associations

39. • Born in 1856, Booker
T. Washington
founded Alabama’s
Tuskegee Institute
and articulated a self-
help ideology through
vocational education
that brought him
national recognition.

40. Tuskegee History Class, photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston (1902)

41. Cotton States and International Cotton Exposition
Held Atlanta, 1895__Promoted Agriculture and New Technology- Famous for
Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech

42. W.E. B. Dubois
While he emerged as a critic of
Booker T. Washington’s
industrial education approach
to African-American uplift, he
was initially supportive, writing
this note to Washington after
his famous Atlanta
Compromise speech in 1895.

43. Industrial Philosophy

45. Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute:
Daytona Beach, Florida (1912?)
Mary McLeod Bethune is third from left. This photo was possibly taken inside the original Faith Hall
of the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls.

47. Thank You!!
• Email: jchambliss@rollins.edu
• Twitter: @JulianChambliss
• Web: www.julianchambliss.com