In the beating Florida heat, community members and attendees visiting the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, kicking off the Florida Emancipation Celebration on May 24.
The event started at 9 a.m. with a march from Depot Park to the museum. The festival is part of the City of Gainesville’s month-long “Journey to Juneteenth” celebration.
Kofi Horne performed with an heirloom drum he inherited. Visitors wandered between educational slideshows, history lessons, personal storytelling performances and vendors.
Cathy Norman, a vendor and first-time attendee of the celebration, said everyone should celebrate history and focus on its positives.
“I think it would be great if the community came out and celebrated, not only with the organization, but with the vendors as well,” Norman said.
The celebration marked the anniversary of the emancipation of enslaved people in Florida. On May 20, 1865, Union Gen. Edward McCook announced the Emancipation Proclamation in Tallahassee.
Zeriah Folston is the equal opportunity director for the City of Gainesville and one of the planners for the event.
“It took people who don’t look like African Americans to compel Lincoln and Lincoln’s own experiences to say, ‘Hey, you know what, it’s time that they have the opportunity to be free,’” Folston said.
Florida recognized the day as a celebration in 1997, reflecting the state’s efforts to honor African American history.
Charlie Jackson, a veteran who fought in the Gulf War, was in attendance.
“Being a soldier who served in combat, this is a great opportunity, leading into Memorial Day, to come into the museum,” Jackson said.
The museum was originally brought to Gainesville from Camp Blanding, a military reservation and training base for the Florida National Guard, he said.
The Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center is a not-for-profit corporation that preserves buildings on-site. The site was originally purchased by Mt. Olive Methodist Episcopal Church in 1995, but it’s no longer tied to the museum since it receives grant funding.
The Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network, which was organized in 2001, was founded by Althemese Barnes and assists in the preservation of African American culture. It receives grant funding to support the network's 30-plus African American museums and other projects.
Barnes asked museum founder Vivian Filer to speak with Gainesville about having a citywide celebration.
“We want to plant the seed in as many minds as we can,” Filer said. “Emancipation is very important because it marks the time that people who have been in chattel slavery for over 450 years were finally free.”
Chattel slavery was a system where people were treated as property, she said.
“It means the sacrifices of my people are coming to light,” Filer said. “It means we get together at this age and say, ‘Thank you’ to the ancestors who lived the lives we can’t even imagine.”
Contact Jack Vincent at jvincent@alligator.org. Follow him on X @JV_Reports.
Jack Vincent is a journalism junior and the Summer 2025 trend reporter for The Avenue. Apart from writing, you can find him at a local plant shop adding a new plant to his overwheling collection.
