Site #2 – Lincolnville Cultural Center and Downtown
Lincolnville Cultural Center: Saint Augustine, FL
Site Visit #2 - January 28th, 2021- Lavinia Lenssen
The
Overview of Site: For our second site visit, we came upon the Lincolnville Cultural Center, located on 102 M L King Ave, Saint Augustine, Florida. The neighborhood of Lincolnville was established by freed slaves, with the cultural center formerly being home to Excelsior High School, a segregated all-black students school. After desegregation, the school building was closed but residents and students wanted the history of the neighborhood to be preserved.
The LMCC’s mission is to preserve, promote and perpetuate over 450 years of the African American story through the arts, educational programs, lectures, live performances, and exhibits.
- Lincolnville Cultural Center Mission Statement
Source Link: For more information click here!
"History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery."
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Artifact #1: 
Caption: The Lincolnville Cultural Center and Museum have Ray Charles' piano on display. I think that that is fascinating! He once played this piano in Lincolnville on Washington Street at the Oddfellows Hall, it was once just a few blocks away from our site visit. He was considered a blind genius and one of the greatest artists of all time. Due to glaucoma he lost his sight at the age of three but became extremely musically talented.
Artifact #2:
Caption: The second and third artifacts shown are from our walk to the Lincolnville Cultural Center. This second artifact was simply too intricate and important not to share. This is the St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument. It is located near the corner of King Street and Charlotte Street by the Plaza area in the town center, a historic public park. But this monument is a dedication to the people that engaged in peaceful protest in Saint Augustine in the early 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. It was commissioned by the Saint Augustine Foot Soldiers Remembrance Project and installed 10 years ago in 2011.
Artifact #3
Caption: Near the Saint Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument, the photo presented above is of an 8-inch Columbiad, this cannon was a part of the armament of historic Fort Marion. Nowadays, this is known as Castillo de San Marcos. Before, during, and after the Civil War, this was a part of Fort Marion. The Canon was presented to the city of St Augustine by the US war department on June 12th, 1900.
Caption: The exterior image above shows the entrance sign of the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center above. I love how at the top of this image, Spanish moss peacefully blows in the breeze, hovering above the sign.
Exterior Image #2:
Caption: Presented in front of the Lincolnville Cultural Center is a large structure made of a book, written on this structure is the infamous title of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
In-Conversation Image #1:
Image Source Link: Click here for more information!
Brief Statement: This Big Fat Coupon Book map exists in conversation with Lincolnville for one sole reason-why is Lincolnville not represented injunction with the rest of the city when it has a lot to share as well? It's just frustrating to see that all tourism maps seem to cut off in the Lincolnville neighborhood, not even representing the cultural center.
In-Conversation Image #2:
Image Source Link: I took pictures of these images, but they exist in conversation with the museum.
Brief Statement: This first artifact is a series of six drawings that came from an individual exhibit within the Lincolville Cultural Center. I placed all six together in a collage because they really captivated my eye. Though different works, they all seamlessly worked together as one piece, a piece embedded in a terrible history. For example, the bottom drawing on the right is about Portuguese slave hunters using weapons and dogs to capture Africans. Slaves were considered a "lucrative commodity" so the Portuguese thought that it was in their best interest to control the slave trade in Iberia. The bottom right work is from the Rijksmuseum Nederlands, Scheepvaart Museum in Amsterdam.
For my connection to the introduction to literature component, I wanted to highlight a quote from Octavia Butler's Kindred.
Pg. 114
"I was slowly emptying Kevin's desk. All my things were still packed. And I found a compact paperback history of slavery in America that might be useful. It lists dates and events that I should be aware of, and it contained a map of Maryland." -Dana
I thought this was an important quote because similar to the paperback books that Dana found from her and Kevin's apartment to gain awareness of the Weylin Plantation and era of slavery that she would time travel to, the Lincolnville cultural Center has an expansive collection of histories of slaves throughout the country, not just in North Florida.
Creative Component:
To complete the creative component of this digital archive on the Lincolnville Cultural Center, I wrote a sonnet. A sonnet is a poem with a strict structure, it has 14 lines, an ABAB rhyme scheme, and it is written in iambic pentameter.
My Cozy Little Nest
My cozy little nest in Lincolnville,
you are an uncharted territory.
So divine, when all stands completely still.
My dignity, their derogatory
claims, upon the crossroads of history.
Where Dr. King once stood, fighting for change.
My divided town, why this misery?
Help us all, you sure know how to enrage.
My cozy little nest in Lincolnville,
with its white-picket fence, wrap-around porch
Where sweet Ann waves to me without ill-will
Where years ago, the Klan held up a torch.
My little town, rich with stories to share
Dare I listen, without facing a glare?
The sonnet I wrote for my second creative component was inspired by this little abode in Lincolnville. But it has a personal impact on me because I will be living there from May to August 2021. As I was searching for apartments to rent or places to stay in st. Augustine this summer, being in this class showed me not to overlook Lincolnville. Sure enough, I found the perfectly priced AirBNB rental in the heart of this beautiful diverse neighborhood, only a block away from the Lincolnville cultural center. But having been built in the 1950s, activists may have walked past this very house during the Civil Rights Movement. Children attending the all-black High School might have walked past this very house. My future cozy little nest is what brought this sonnet to life.
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