Jax Library Timeline of Florida Race Riots

The Battle of Olustee – The Black Soldiers of the United States
Guest speaker James Abraham (Florida Talks, Florida Humanities)
2:45 – 4 p.m. | Hicks Auditorium

The Battle of Olustee or the Battle of Ocean Pond was fought in Baker County, Florida on February 20, 1864, during the American Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in Florida during the war. Union General Truman Seymour had landed troops at Jacksonville, aiming chiefly to disrupt Confederate food supply. Meeting little resistance, he proceeded towards the state capital of Tallahassee (against orders), assuming that he would face only the small Florida militia. Confederates in Charleston sent reinforcements under General Alfred H. Colquitt and the two armies collided near Ocean Pond in Olustee. Union forces were repulsed and retreated to Jacksonville. Some were garrisoned there to occupy territory. Other troops were transferred to other, more active areas.

In the early 1940s, Harry T. Moore organized the Florida state conference of the NAACP and significantly increased membership (he would later become its first paid executive secretary). He also formed the Progressive Voters’ League in Florida in 1944. It’s been said, “He understood the significance of the power of the vote. He understood… the power of the pen. He knew that [African Americans] had to have a voice and we had to have it by voting.”

In 1947, building on the U.S. Supreme Court case in which Marshall successfully argued against Texas “white primary” that excluded minority voters, Moore organized a letter writing campaign to help rebuff bills proposed in the Florida legislature that would effectively perpetuate white primaries.

A Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry
Presented by David Morton (Florida Talks, Florida Humanities)
1:30 – 2:45 p.m. | Hicks Auditorium

David Morton received his Ph.D. in Texts and Technology from the University of Central Florida in 2019, where he is also an instructor in both History and Media Studies. He was a recipient of the 2016-17 Fulbright Scholarship and serves as program director for the Flickering Landscapes Conference Series. His book, A Motion Picture Paradise! A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry was published by the University of Florida Press in July 2024.