- 2024 marks 200 years of Tallahassee and Leon County during the bicentennial celebration they aim to make the celebration inclusive and celebrate all races and ethnicities.
- 100 years ago—when the city and county celebrated, the centennial, they were amid Jim Crow. Officially there were six days for White residents to celebrate and one day for Black residents.
- Watch the video to learn about the fate of families of enslaved people who were brought from Popular Forest Plantation in Virginia to the L'Eau Noir plantation, owned by Francis, in Northeastern Leon County.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
2024 marks 200 years of Tallahassee and Leon County.
100 years ago—when the city and county celebrated, they were amid Jim Crow. Officially there were six days for White residents to celebrate and one day for Black residents.
This year there's a targeted focus to include everyone.
The contributions of Black Americans in Tallahassee and Leon County run deep.
"We have got to take get to our young people to let them know who's whose family that they are," Gloria Jefferson Anderson, a Tallahassee native, researcher, and historian said. "And they have family members who were here 200 years ago who made a big difference in building the City of Tallahassee."
Many of the history makers started here at Old Lincoln High School.
Lincoln opened in 1869 and was one of only three schools in the state providing high school to Black students.
"It was built to educate former slaves and their descendants," Jefferson Anderson said. "We are their descendants. And I have had family members, all of my family's from all sides, graduate from Lincoln High School."
She also graduated from Lincoln.
"I graduated 100 years after slavery ended," Jefferson Anderson said.
Anderson will share the story of her ancestors and the high school during Tallahassee's Bicentennial celebration.
On April 6, 2024, at the Dr. B.L. Perry, Jr. Branch Library Jefferson Anderson will present an oral presentation about her family's history and legacy.
It will include the Jefferson branch of her family to the Eppes family. Francis Wayles Eppes was the only surviving child of Thomas Jefferson's daughter Maria Jefferson Eppes and her husband, John Wayles Eppes, Jefferson's nephew by marriage.
She will talk about the fate of families of enslaved people who were brought from Popular Forest Plantation in Virginia to the L'Eau Noir plantation, owned by Francis, in Northeastern Leon County.
"The color community, that's what we were called back then, the color community was also a part of the centennial celebration they had in 1924," Jefferson Anderson said. "They had a pageant. They had a parade. They had speeches all over the community. And this is what we want to do this year."
You'll find events during the bicentennial highlighting French Town Heritage, the oldest community in Tallahassee where Black people settled after the Emancipation in Florida. There will also be historical documentaries about historical Black cemeteries that have been long forgotten or built over.
For a full list of bicentennial events click here.
