Florida Emancipation Sites
This selection of celebrations represents just a few of the hundreds of locations where Floridians have commemorated Emancipation Day since 1863.
Duval County
1. James Weldon Johnson Park
135 W Monroe St., Jacksonville
On January 4, 1868, freed people gathered in Jacksonville’s oldest green space, then called St. James Park, to celebrate Emancipation Day with a parade, readings of the Proclamation, and speeches. Though the Union Army occupied the city beginning in February 1864, and the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation on plantations along the St. Johns River is well documented, it is unknown how the people of Jacksonville commemorated Emancipation Day before 1868.
A view of St. James Park (now James Weldon Johnson Park), ca. 1890
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
2. Mason Park (today’s Stanton College Preparatory School)
1149 W 13th St., Jacksonville
In 1903, a group of Black businessmen opened the North Jacksonville Street Railway, a trolley system that served Black riders. The line ended at a company-run amusement park: Mason Park. On New Year’s Day in 1904, a reported 10,000 people attended an Emancipation Day program in the park, the state’s largest recorded emancipation celebration. Highlights included an address by Judge Robert H. Terrell of Washington, DC, and a benediction by Rev. James Johnson. Rev. Johnson’s sons, J. Rosamond and James Weldon, penned the lyrics and music of the Black anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which they previously debuted at Jacksonville’s Stanton School in 1900.
Escambia County
3. Kupfrian’s Park (historical marker)
1717 W Avery St., Pensacola
In the 1880s, Kupfrian’s Park offered a new style of recreation to Pensacola residents. The vast park contained a German beer garden, a racecourse, and large, oak-shaded pavilions. Pensacola’s Black community deemed it the perfect venue for the 1889 Emancipation Day celebration. After a parade, The Daily News reported that the participants retired to the park where they enjoyed “five beeves, two hogs, six sheep, twenty-five hams, a thousand loaves of bread, and other things…”
The entrance to Kupfrian’s Park, 1885. A mule-drawn railcar carried guests to and from the park, then located on the outskirts of Pensacola.
Collections of the University of West Florida Historic Trust
Parkgoers pose under the grand oaks at Kupfrian’s Park, 1885.
Collections of the University of West Florida Historic Trust
Hillsborough County
4. Courthouse Square (historical marker near today’s Lykes Gaslight Square Park)
401 N. Franklin St., Tampa
From 1848 to 1952, this square housed the courthouse complex for Hillsborough County. According to the Tampa Tribune, the Emancipation Day celebration that occurred here on January 1, 1906, featured the longest parade that the city had seen to that date.
Leon County
5. The Knott House
301 E Park Ave., Tallahassee
Known then as the Hagner House, this residence served as headquarters for Union General Edward M. McCook when he announced the Emancipation Proclamation in effect in Florida on May 20, 1865. Since 1997, the Florida Department of State and the John G. Riley Center & Museum have celebrated the occasion annually with a series of events, including a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation from the steps of the house.
Brian Bibeau and the 2nd Infantry Regiment United States Colored Troops Living History Association present the Emancipation Proclamation at a 2015 Emancipation Day celebration at the Knott House Museum.
Photo by Sara Brockmann
6. Lake Ella
645 Lake Ella Dr., Tallahassee
In the 1860s, Tallahasseeans called this area Bull (or Buhl) Pond. An Emancipation Day picnic occurred here as early as 1867, part of a larger celebration that drew over 2,000 freed men, women, and children. Communities throughout Leon County held similar events.
7. Old City Cemetery
400 W Park Ave., Tallahassee
On March 6, 1865, Union soldiers, including Black troops from the 2nd and 99th US Colored Infantries (USCI), attempted to capture Tallahassee from the Confederate forces during the Battle of Natural Bridge. Fallen USCI soldiers are buried in the City Cemetery. In 1871, the Semi-Weekly Floridian reported that Union troops decorated the graves of US soldiers in a ceremony attended by many citizens. By 1875, the local community had incorporated this remembrance into the yearly Emancipation celebration. The John G. Riley Center & Museum’s annual grave decorating ceremony continues this tradition today.
Tallahassee’s Old City Cemetery, ca. 1870s
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
8. Henry Hill Park
Centerville Rd., Tallahassee
Tallahassee’s Hill family preserves a special piece of Leon County’s emancipation story dating back to the earliest celebrations—the freedom drumbeat. First played in 1867, the Hill family and others have preserved its rhythm for over 150 years. The Hills still celebrate Emancipation Day on their ancestral property, now named Henry Hill Park.
9. Horseshoe Plantation (private property)
After emancipation, many Black families found employment on former plantations as farmers, servants, cooks, or sharecroppers. The cycles of debt associated with farming and sharecropping often kept families tied to the same properties into the twentieth century. A photographer captured scenes of an Emancipation Day celebration from the 1930s at Horseshoe Plantation, seen below.
A male performer on a wooden platform captivates a crowd of men, women, and children adorned in white outfits during an Emancipation Day celebration at Horseshoe Plantation, ca. 1930.
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
Marion County
10. Mitchell’s Hall
18 SW Broadway St., Ocala (approximate modern address)
Black residents viewed the construction of Mitchell’s Hall, a two-story brick building on one of Ocala’s main roads, as an achievement for their community. In January 1896, Black community leaders staged their Emancipation Day program there. The Ocala Evening Star hailed the speeches and music of the event as “one of the finest entertainments ever given in the state.”
Miami-Dade County
11. New Mount Zion Baptist Church
301 NW 9th St., Miami
The speeches and musical portion of Miami’s 1905 Emancipation Day celebration took place at New Mount Zion. Organized in 1896, the church housed one of the oldest Black congregations in the city. The current building is a historic structure, but it is not the original building from the late 1890s.
Monroe County
12. Barracoons at Fort Taylor (no longer standing)
601 Howard England Way, Key West
After the US Congress outlawed the international slave trade in 1808, illegal slaving expeditions continued smuggling captured Africans into the country. The US Navy intercepted several ships near Cuba in 1860 and built barracks (also called barracoons) near Fort Taylor to temporarily house the 1,400 Africans freed from the ships. Both “barrack” and “barracoon” derive from barracón or barraca (Spanish for “soldier’s tent”), and barracoon refers specifically to lodging made to hold enslaved people or convicts. Three years later, the barracoons played a prominent role in the city’s first Emancipation Day celebration. On January 29, 1863, a parade of celebrants concluded a day of revelry with a large feast there.
In 1861, James C. Clapp noted the location of the barracoons (circled in blue) on his map of Key West.
Portion of original map courtesy of the Florida Keys History Center
13. First Baptist Church (now the Key West Theater)
524 Eaton St., Key West
Emancipation arrived for Key West’s enslaved population on January 1, 1863, two years and four months before Brigadier General McCook’s May 1865 declaration in Tallahassee. After taking a few weeks to organize the festivities, Key West’s Black population celebrated their emancipation on January 29, 1863. The celebration included parades, feasts, speeches, and religious services as revelers traveled between the local barracks, Union headquarters, and First Baptist Church. The 1863 church structure no longer exists at the site.
Palm Beach County
14. West Palm Beach
On May 20, 1898, West Palm Beach’s Black community celebrated Emancipation Day with speeches by teachers and a local preacher. Next followed a dinner and bicycle race, where the victor received a tea set. A ball held at Lauther’s Hall concluded the event. Over 200 people arrived by train from Fort Pierce and Miami, adding to the local crowd.
Putnam County
15. Bethel AME Church
719 Reid St., Palatka
Rev. Richard Carroll, a Black political and religious leader from South Carolina, addressed the Emancipation Day crowd at Bethel AME Church on January 1, 1916. An esteemed orator, Carroll had been considered as a possible President for Tuskegee Normal Institute after the death of the school’s founder, Booker T. Washington.
St. Johns County
16. Downtown St. Augustine
St. Joseph’s Convent, 241 St. George Street;
St. Augustine Art Association, 16 Marine Street
Plaza de la Constitución,170 St. George Street
The Union Army occupied St. Augustine in February 1862, and a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation circulated in the city in September. According to the recollection of Mary Ann Murray, who was a young, enslaved girl at that time, officials gathered the city’s enslaved people at a vacant lot near St. Joseph’s School to read the Proclamation on January 1, 1863. A colony of freed people began living on Marine Street, near today’s St. Augustine Art Association. The freedmen of St. Augustine chose the city’s central plaza as the backdrop for their first Emancipation Day celebration in January 1864. Union soldiers had likely announced the Emancipation Proclamation in the plaza the year prior, among other locations.
17. Lincolnville
Lincolnville Historic District, St. Augustine
In 1866, Black families began leasing land on the banks of Maria Sanchez Creek. This began a settlement first known as Africa (or Little Africa). Residents later renamed it Lincolnville in honor of President Abraham Lincoln. Black residents of St. Augustine celebrated Emancipation Day into the 20th century, most notably with parades. Neighborhood photographer Richard Twine captured the jubilant scenes from an Emancipation Day parade in the early 1920s. Today’s Lincolnville Festival, held each November, continues the legacy of the community’s Emancipation Day celebrations.
A festive Emancipation Day parade winds through St. Augustine, ca. 1920s.
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
Volusia County
18. De Leon Springs State Park
601 Ponce De Leon Blvd., De Leon Springs
A Volusia County Record article described the May 20, 1891, Emancipation Day gathering of over 2,000 people the largest to date at the springs. Railroads offered special rates to travelers and the record crowd consisted largely of people from Volusia and Orange Counties.
19. Bethune-Cookman University
640 Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Blvd., Daytona Beach
The female students at today’s Bethune-Cookman University, known in the 1910s as the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls, regularly participated in local Emancipation Day festivities. On January 2, 1915, parade floats from the school garnered special attention, and the students displayed their wares to the spectators. A band, more than one dozen decorated vehicles, and floats from businesses, churches, and aid societies completed the parade.
Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls, is pictured with students at the school’s barn, ca 1912. Dr. Bethune is second from left.
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
Washington County
20. Chipley
The Chipley Banner recorded a small Emancipation Day observance on May 25, 1895.
Special thanks to the Florida Keys History Center and the St. Augustine Historical Society.
For more information on Emancipation Celebrations in Florida, visit:
General emancipation history:
floridamemory.com/learn/exhibits/photo_exhibits/emancipation
St. Augustine:
Do you have items or information related to historic Emancipation Day celebrations in Florida? Contact the Museum of Florida History’s Research and Collection staff at [email protected] to share your Emancipation Day stories.
