JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — You don't have to wait until Juneteenth to learn about Jacksonville's Black History. You can take one Jacksonville woman's tour any time of the year.
It's only the third year Juneteenth is being recognized as a federal holiday. The day commemorates when the last people who were enslaved in Texas learned they were free in 1865, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
One Jacksonville woman says her family has always celebrated Florida's Emancipation Day and she's making it her mission to share stories of Jacksonville's Black History, which she says often go untold.
"Lo and behold, there were truckloads of history here and no one was telling the story," said Yolanda Copeland, founder of Explore Jax Core.
Copeland often begins her two-hour, 10-mile Black history tour in her five-passenger electric vehicle at James Weldon Johnson Park. She has an ax as a prop to discuss Ax Handle Saturday.
In the beginning of the tour you'll learn about downtown murals you may pass by every day. But while they are visible, much of the city's Black history is not.
"The neighborhood that was once established in 1866, three years before historic Springfield, is no more," Copeland said as she drove north of downtown. "Much of the history really has been erased through policies, urban removal, urban renewal, disinvestment."
Copeland says many of her riders are older and remember segregation. She says even slavery was not so long ago.
"My grandfather was born in 1866 so when we say that, 'Oh that was so long ago,' it actually wasn't for someone like me," she said. "It wasn't two or three generations ago. My granddad was born enslaved."
Copeland's tour pays homage to those who built cities without a voice and ensures Jacksonville's Black history is not forgotten.
"Much of the history is located actually in Black neighborhoods, she said. "So if those neighborhoods no longer exist, it doesn't take long before people forget."