Stuer1986-87 VOL. XV

OLD CITY HALL, HOME OF BOCA RATON HISTORICAL SOCIETYJeanne Nixon Baur, Artist

A report to the membership of

Boca Raton Historical Society, Inc.

P.O. Box 1113 • Boca Raton, Florida 33429

Board of TrusteesBoca Raton Historical Society, Inc.

Clement C. Winke, Jr., Chairman of the Board

Donald CurlHerman DanceMrs. David DickenaonMrs. Myrtle Butts FlemingJohn GirardMr3. Richard HaberRobert MacLarenRichard McCusker

Mrs. Bradley MiddlebrookMr. Scott MorrisonMrs. Gilbert PomarMrs. Dorn Lee ReddWilliam RutterCharles SchwadererMrs. Stephen SnyderSara Jane Sylvia

Mrs. Duncan Lott, PresidentMrs. Edward Toomey, First Vice President

Mrs. Peter Schmidt, Second Vice PresidentMrs. Richard Notes, Recording Secretary

Mrs. George Canty, TreasurerMrs. Howard McCall, Archivist

The Oral History of Pearl City began in 1985 after manyyears of discussions by the Historical Society and the City ofBoca Raton, about the significance of Pearl City as a stablecommunity in the midst of rapid transition. The development ofPearl City began about 1914-15, before the City of Boca Ratonwas incorporated. It has remained a stable community since themaintaining its residential characteristics amidst rapidcommercialization adjacent to it. Many of the residents wereborn there or are direct descendents of the original settlersyet no written history of the area exists. Many of these earlyresidents have passed away and it became evident that a rareopportunity to record the history of this community was beingmissed. A plan was made to undertake this significant projectby interviewing many of the residents who still remembered theearly days.

Funding for the project came from several sources. Firstof all, we would like to thank Sandra McGinn, who as Directorof the City of Boca Raton's Community Improvement Departmentgenerously donated $5,000 towards the project. She has beenresponsible for the overall development of Pearl City and itsimprovements since 1979. Secondly, we wish to thank GeorgePercy from the Department of State, Division of Archives, Histo:and Records for the State's contribution of $3,500 which createithe initial seed money for the project. Third, we would like tithank Dr. Arthur Evans, Associate Professor of Sociology atFlorida Atlantic University (FAU), who not only donated his timito oversee the project, but interviewed the residents andprepared the final study. In addition, he was able to acquirean additional $1,500 from FAU's Joint Center for Environmentaland Urban Problems. We would like to thank Dr. James Nicholas,who as Acting Director of the Center made these funds available

In addition, we would like to thank Jesse Moore, Directorof Community Development for the City of Boca Raton, whodonated staff time; Ella PoLtier and Susan Berman from the City'iWord Processing Department for donating their time to transcribithe tapes and Annette Evans, from the Community ImprovementDepartment, who provided many hours helping to oversee thisproject.

We would also like to thank the following people for theirhelp in providing photographs for the Spanish River Papers:

Irene Demery CarswellMyrtle Butts FlemingLee and George SpainLois Martin

We specifically wish to recognize Flo Roghaar, who as thephotographer, provided the photographs of the people intervieweifor this project- In addition we would like

David C. AsheCharles H. Goby

HONORARY BOARD OF TRUSTEESMrs. L. Bert StephensRobert D. Tylander

to thank Flo O'Brien who, as President of the Boca RatonHistorical Society in 1984, encouraged the pursuit of fundingfor this project; Katherine Dickenson, who was extremelyhelpful in our receiving State funding for this project;Eunice Canty who has helped review and administer the project;Dr. Donald Curl, who has been instrumental In reviewing andediting the history and Peggy McCall who as Archivist for theBoca Raton Historical Society has spent more hours researching,assembling and discussing the Oral History than any of us.

Finally, we want to thank Sharon Wells who is the authorof this edition. Sharon who is the Historian of the HistoricFlorida Keys Preservation Board is the author of many booksabout Florida and its history including, Portraits: WoodenHouses of Key West; Forgotten Legacy: Blacks in 19th CenturyKey West and Solares Hill's Walking Guide to Old Town Key West.

We consider this edition of the Spanish River Papers asjust a beginning. The original tapes and lengthy typedinterviews are on file in the Archives for research. This isan ongoing project which will require many more interviews andmuch more research. We are especially interested in receivinginformation and photographs of families and events relating toPearl City and urge people to contact Peggy McCall at 395-6766with this information.

THE SPANISH RIVER PAPERS

1986-87 VOL. XV

PEARL CITY

An Analysis of the Folk History

by

SHARON WELLS

5s tomir i s , Chairman Oral HistoryBoca Raton H i s t o r i c a l Socie ty , Inc.

CONTENTS

Purpose

Foreword

Photographs

Historical Perspective

Roots, Emigration and Work

Educational, Religious, and Cultural Patterns

Medicine and Burial Practices

Legal and Social Relationships

Epilogue

Photographs

Footnotes

Bibliography

Corrections

Notes

Map

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PURPOSE v i

This study seeks to illuminate the past experiences andheritage of black residents in Pearl City? a small communitythat comprises only a three-block area in southern Florida.The subjects of this analysisr southerners who are black ofBahamian and African descents migrated further south fromtheir point of origin in the early decades of the twentiethcentury. Collectively? they formed a tiny community withinthe city limits of present-day Boca Ratonr in Palm BeachCounty* Florida.

The purpose of th i s inquiry is to focus upon aneglected culture of the black race in an isolated geo-graphical setting and to help unveil the thoughts andmemories of those inhabi tants . These pa r t i cu la rremembrances and oral histories recall a generation ofliving which is a significant chapter in an immigrantgroup's past--a past which is important in defining thepioneer history of south Florida.

Oral histories often contain passages of pure eloquencethat can offer unique and personal testimony to the way i tonce was. Frequently? the annals of a society may leave fewwritten traces of i ts history. In such cases? oral recordscan serve as documentation as to the genealogical roots? thechildhood pastimes? family l ife? social pa t te rns /educational achievements? occupational and economicpractices? and societal mores of a people. This study isdirected towards contributing a fuller understanding of boththe times and the culture of Pearl City townspeople basedupon their own voices.

There is a distinction between formal history and thetraditions as derived from oral sources. "The use of oralsources as or iginal h i s t o r i c a l information? weighedcarefully? is potentially the most valuable and yet? up tonow? the least exploited in local history research?"1 writesBarbara Allen in From Memory to History. Further? shenotes:

Two cardinal points about the nature of oraltradition need to be restated: f i rs t of all?people remember a vast amount of information and awealth of de ta i l that is never committed towriting; second? what al l oral sources have incommon is the special perspective they provide onthe past. Written records speak to the point ofwhat happened? while oral sources almostinvariably provide Insights into how people feltabout what happened.

viiThusi the reconstruction of l i festyles based upon oralsources is both useful and valuable: useful in informing alater generation about details of a material culture whichmay well have nearly vanished and valuable in illustratinghow everyday customs of a community can achieve asignificance. "In reconstructing a folk history, theresearcher defines a community's geographical and/orcultural boundaries in accordance with the concepts held bythe people who live there* since their statements and feel-ings about their community may differ sharply from those ofoutsiders.

In the context of such material from memories/ theauthor was asked to review the content of specific oralhistory interviews and to offer an historical commentary.Through this documentary the author hopes to provide ananalysis of the strands of black history as recorded in theoral history interviews which were collected in 1984-85 byDr. Arthur S. Evans of Florida Atlantic University. Dr.Evans's efforts were sparked by the Boca Raton HistoricalSociety's original concept to document the heritage ofseveral generations of blacks in Pearl City. The thrusthere is to provide an historical overview and summary con-clusions based upon the recorded evidence regarding thecultural patterns and way of life of Pearl City residents.

The intent herein is to utilize the typed transcript-ions of the oral histories spoken by informants of varyingages and sexes who either live in or have resided in PearlCity* to organize the information into topical subjects andto interpret what the people say in accordance with theirown concepts of what is historically significant. In thewords of historian Charles Hudson? "In a folk history weattempt to find what people in another society believe'really happened/1 as judged by their sense of credibilityand relevance."

It is indeed important to direct attention toward thestudy of specific black communities. The search for under-standing the Afro-American experience can contributevaluable insights into an ethnic identity. Hopefully/ thisstudy will serve as a catalyst for further explorations andnew perspectives into the black heritage of the town. In afuller context/ research into local history can glean muchfrom the oral histories of an earlier generation. Suchstudies can provide useful data for regional and statechronologies. A portrait of a single community's past helpspermit an understanding of the broader national legacy.

FOREWORD viii

Local history is "naturally and inescapably linkedwith the study of folklore." asserted the preeminent folk-lorist Richard Dorson in American Folklore and theHipfnrian. The study of specific/ local communities af-fords us the "opportunity to record folk traditions andemploy them for the enrichment of the h i s to r i ca lnarrative-"4 This indepth look at Pearl City hopefullywill provide an intimate look at the early twentiethcentury culture of the community's f i rs t generation ofsettlers.

The following persons/ the great majority of whom arepresent or former residents of Pearl City in Boca Raton/Florida/ were the subjects of oral interviews conducted byFlorida Atlantic University associate professor Dr. ArthurS. Evans/ Jr. All the respondents/ except where noted/ areblack. The interviews were presented in a transcribed formin "Pearl City: Black Perspectives of a Black Community inSoutheast Florida/" a manuscript completed in June 1985:

Lois Martin Jacqueline HarveyBud JacksonArchie CarswellHenry JamesAmos JacksonUlysses BrownEmma RigginsHomer GoddardLouis and Louise WilliamsMary JenkinsGeorge SpainArchie and Irene (Demery) CarswellLillie B. EvansAlice and Malchester BrownAlvia Fountain/ Willie Mae Jackson/ Almetta BroylesIdella GladesMolly RichAlan Alford (white; not a resident of Pearl City)Walter DolphusTom WrightCarl Douglas (white; not a Pearl City resident)The collection of interviews provided the data base

for this historical analysis by the author. The memoriesof participants/ who are eyewitnesses to events past/ offeran opportunity to draw composite sketches of the anonymousfolks who have through the years played important/ butunheralded and so are unrecorded/ parts in their com-munities/ institutions/ and families.

Lois (Dolphus) Martin

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Q.J. "Bud" Jackson

Henry Jamesi

Amos Jackson

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Ulysses Brown Emma Riggins

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Homer Goddard Mary Lee Jenkins

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Louise Williams loan, William's

George Spain

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Irene (Demery) Carswell

Lillie B. Evans Alice Brown Malchester Brown

Mo//y Rich

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Walter Dolphus

Tom Wright Jacqueline Harvey

\ , ; ' • ' , ' , ' • " " ' ' ' • ? " ' ' ' . • , • • . • ! " ' • ! ' • ' •

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Alvia Fountain Willie Mae (Fountain) Jackson

Almetta (Fountain) Broyles

AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

A br ie f h i s t o r i c a l chronicle of the pioneer develop-ment of south Florida and Boca Raton through t e r r i t o r i a land ea r ly statehood days wil l help to set the founding ofPearl City within i t s his tor ical context and provide acentury of perspective. Ownership of Florida was transfer-red in 1821 by the Adams-Onis Treaty from Spain to theUnited States. In 1836 Dade County was formed and nineyears later Florida became a state. In mid-century thehabitable portion of the southeast coast of Florida was cutby inland rivers that flowed from the Everglades withadjacent banks of dense oak and mahogany hammocks.Prairies were vast/ and the land was covered by pine bar-rens i palmettos^ and sandy t ra i l s .

The enactment of the Armed Occupation Act of 1842following the end of the Second Seminole War conflictforeshadowed the advent of homesteading. The latter de-cades of the nineteenth century witnessed the arrival ofthousands of homesteaders who responded to the lure ofowning 160-acre plots in exchange for farming and cultivat-ing the land. By the 1870s/ settlement had proceededsouthward to the Lake Worth area. Travel was solely byboat along the rivers and bays; only sand or rock roadsexisted across the isolated/ wooded terrain.

Farming became the basis of the old pioneer culture.Everyday life was simple and dependent upon a largely sub-sistence agrarian economy. Small farm settlements dottedthe interior and coastal lands as the east coast of Floridaremained very sparsely populated in the 1880s. In her bookChildhood Memories/ Diane Benedetto remembers the earlyBoca Raton: "It was wild and beautiful then/ like someforeign tropical land. . . . "

"Over the next thirteen years/ 1880 to 1893/ theisolated and primitive life of the earliest settlers gaveway to relative convenience: scheduled transportation byboats/ stagecoach/ and even railroad/ an organized schooland church/ and comfortable hotels for iourists seeking themagic of summer during the winter."5 Yet/ Thomas M.Rickards/ an early traveler who was the first settler inBoca Raton/ wrote in an 1892 let ter: "The seven-mile tripby r a i l from Jupi ter (where the lighthouse loomsmajestically over the inlet) to Juno Eat the northern tipof Lake WorthL was through what appeared to me a ratherbarren waste."0

IThomas M. Rickards George A. Long

Frank H. Chesebro

PEARL CITY

In 1889 construction began on the first railroad, anarrow gauge line from Jupiter to Juno. This "CelestialRailroad" linked the Indian River and Lake Worth/ providingmore convenient transportation for travelers to southFlorida. In the 1890s Henry M. Flagler inarched his rail-road empire southward/ reaching West Palm Beach in 1894.Finally/ in 1895 the oil magnate's corporate transportationlinks officially became known as the Florida East CoastRailway. Luxury resorts and hotels that served as winterplaygrounds for the wealthy were the inevitable accompani-ment of the influx of rails.

In 1903 at the dawn of the twentieth century/ southFlorida was still largely made up of towns and villageswith mule-drawn carts and horses. There were few auto-mobiles. As various towns such as Boynton/ Delray/ andBoca Raton were mapped/ Palm Beach County was establishedas a county separate from Dade in 1909.

Several individuals and two distinct immigrant groupsprofoundly influenced the formation of Boca Raton. Thetown's first permanent settler was Thomas M. Rickardsz aMissouri native who originally migrated to Florida in 1876and settled in north Florida ten years later. A surveyorand civil engineer/ Rickards purchased land in Boca Ratonin 1884. In 1895 he moved to Boca Raton where he worked asthe agent for the Florida East Coast Railway. In 1897Rickards surveyed several hundred acres of land/ subdividedit into ten-acre tracts for pineapple planting/ and truckfarming. He also set out several citrus groves for HenryM. Flagler and Frank Lewis.

In December 1903 Frank H. Chesebro moved from Michiganwith the hope of successfully transplanting his fruitgrow-ing business. Chesebro/ an early homesteader who activelyshaped the community/ was an important force in the localtruck farming industry.

George A. Long/ who had begun an association withCaptain Rickards through engineering projects for theFlorida Southern Railway Company in Marion County/ movedpermanently to Boca Raton where he rented Rickards's firstresidence on the canal in 1902. Long/ who owned a largepackinghouse/ served as the settlement's first postmasterin 1908/ the first appointed mayor of Boca Raton after itsincorporation in 1924/ and was twice elected to terms ascounty commissioners.

In 1904 Joseph Sakaiz an educated Japanese/ ended hissearch for a place to begin an agricultural station wherepineapples could be cultivated when he founded a Japanesecolony at Boca Raton. Encouraged by Henry M. Flagler/ whoprovided free train passage as an inducement for potentiallaborers/ Sakai led sixteen new Japanese emigres to settlea 140-acre tract near present-day Northwest 51st Street inBoca Raton. The Asian pioneers/ who numbered forty by

PEARL CITY

1908/ established their colony in 1905/ calling it Yamatc(an ancient name for Japan itself)/ which literally trans-lates as "large/ peaceful country. Sakai and his fol-lowers labored successfully for a number of years. Thei]cultural impact upon Boca Raton still persists.

Prior to 1911 a small number of black individuals andfamilies undertook an exodus southward to explore burgeon-ing economic opportunties in the Boca Raton area,Deerfield Beach/ immediately south of Boca Raton/ alreadyhad a large black communtiy. When Rickards/ Chesebro/ ancLong first came to Boca Raton/ they employed black laborerswho walked from Deerfield and Delray Beach to the newljhomesteaded farms in Boca Raton. Slowly a number of blackstook up residence there as agriculture took hold as th<economic mainstay. In the ensuing decades the inter-dependence of the local railroad/ the homesteading farmers.and the productive lands inescapably shaped the way of lif<for the black pioneers.

Although a scheduled stop on the Florida East CoasiRailway/ Boca Raton persisted as a small farming town unti:1925. It was a place relatively untouched by modernitywhere change came slowly. Living conditions were quitiprimitive in the barren vicinity of what was to becomiPearl City. Louise Williams remembers the area in 1934: ". . where 12th Street is now and Glades Road/ tit was] al!bushes and wilderness. It was a sand road/ deep sand/ an<in the summertime you got stuck if you didn't know how bdrive through the sand. . . . You didn't have no runniniwater and we didn't have no lights. We had outdoor bath'rooms/ toilets and we had to take a bath in tin tubs."

There were but a few black families living in Pear!City in the 1920s. According to George Spain's memory"The majority of blacks lived right here in what we calPearl City; those three blocks. All of this was woodsThere were only the homes right there where Tom's place i,[Glades Road and Dixie Highway]/ that was our family"place; and only about three or four families east of thereThe rest was nothing but woods. The rest of the peopllived south of us. It started at 12th and went down t10th and from there in between Federal Highway and DixiHighway." Boca Raton remained the secluded/ wooded hamlewhere truck farmers/ tenant farmers/ and sharecropperpredominated until the Florida land boom of 1925 opened usouth Florida to land speculators involved in grand reaestate schemes.

The Twenties were a time marked by tremendous changand the beginning of the modern era of growth and construction. Addison Mizner/ who became the area's mosfamous architect during this epoch/ dreamed of designingresort city. Through the Mizner Development Corporationhe put forth a proposal to develop a 6/000-acre tract o

1900 Map. Pearl City would be section 20 parts of blocks 2, 3 and 4.

PEARL CITY

Mediteranean-inspired structures. Though the corporationfailed and declared bankruptcy within two years* the open-ing of the Cloister Inn as a winter resort mecca sparked apromotional buildup which ultimately turned Boca Raton froma sleepy town into an exclusive resort area. The Inn wastransformed by entrepreneur Clarence Geist into a swankprivate club by 1928. Just as the arrival of a seasonalrelite/ northern gentry had a significant effect upon theblack residents^ so too did the start of World War II. In1942 the federal government acquired thousands of acres ofland to establish the Boca Raton Army Air Corps school forradar training. The wartime influx of the military had amajor impact upon the indigenous black population.

These are the various historical/ economic/ andpolitical factors which have affected the blacks who set-tled in the Pearl City section of Boca Raton.

Boca Raton Club 1933

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Mizner Development Corporation Road Construction Crew 1925,

EMIGRATION, ROOTS, AND WORK

According to the voices of those Pearl City residentswho recorded their reflections orally, the majority ofblacks who migrated to south Florida took one of tworoutes, travelling either from the nearby Bahamaarchipelago or from the southern part of the United StatesThe greatest majority moved from other southern states-most predominantly, from Georgia, near Macon or Dublin orAlbany. A few claimed the states of South Carolina andAlabama or other Florida towns, such as Jacksonville,Marianna, or Pahokee as previous home sites.

The life of the Negro in the Bahamas in the latenineteenth century had become increasingly grim. in theearly part of the century two dominant migrations hadoriginally propelled the movement of blacks into theBahamas. Both the African slave trade and the Loyalists'exodus from the southern United States following theAmerican Revolution had served as catalysts. Throughoutthose early decades of the nineteenth century a subsistenceagriculture and the sea provided the main economic tradefor Bahamians. Yet the exportation of cotton, sisal, andpineapples had furnished the islanders with incomes thatprovided for only a very meager survival. The plantationagriculture was depressed, and the outlook for bettereconomic conditions became bleak.

At the opening of the twentieth century, a reversemigration among the black population in the Bahama Islands,back to the United States, took place. While many blackswho migrated from the Bahamas chose to relocate in Key Westas fishermen, laborers, or carpenters, a few journeyednorth to Boca Raton in search of new economic opportuni-ties .

Blacks from the Bahamas migrated to the Boca Ratonarea early in the twentieth century. They were knownlocally as "Nassaus." According to one inhabitant, theNassaus lived and worked as laborers and farmhands atYamato, the Japanese agrarian colony. Alex Hughes, who hadlived in Deerfield and worked for Frank Chesebro since1903, recalled in 1972, "The white people lived in southBoca and the Japanese and Bahamians lived in Yamato [ten totwelve blocks north of Pearl City]. Here in Pearl Citythat was only palmettoes, spruce pine, and mosquitoes untilI built my house [in 1915]." Hughes, the first black toreside in what was to become known as Pearl City, a smallsector approximately ten blocks north of Boca Raton'scenter, moved there in 1914. The 1915 State of Floridacensus recorded 615 blacks An Palm Beach County. Few,however, lived in Pearl City.12

PEARL CITY

One Pearl City resident, recalled that Florida wasslightly better than Georgia for blacks and remembered thathis parents had first stopped at Yamato as homesteaders."What was in there was Bahamian people; you know, Nassaudescent. But it was more blacks up there .than it is herein Pearl City," Homer Goddard commented. J All of theblacks in residence there were farm laborers; some workedin fields owned by the Japanese colonists. Yamato sup-ported farmers who were homesteaders, but not land ownersin the formal sense. "The people who lived there, atyamato, owned their houses, but . . . it was sort of wayback like. They .were homesteading . . . . It wasn't apurchase thing."14

In 1906 an article in the Tropical Sun describedSakai's experiment: "Yamato is a colony made up wholly ofJapanese, located about 21 miles below Palm Beach. TheFlorida East Coast Railway Company . . . established aregular station there and all trains, save the expresstrains, stop there. The chief industry of the colony ispineapple and fruit-raising and in this line all have beenuniversally successful."15

The Japanese and black Bahamian workers managed tosustain their economy until 1909-10. The breakdown oftheir economic structure can be traced to two significantfactors: a pineapple blight that destroyed the major cropand serious competition from Cuba's exportation of cheaperpineapples which had become available in great quantities.The Yamato communal experiment was disbanded shortlyafterwards, though many of the Japanese settlers continuedto live in the area.

The reasoning among the blacks from the American Southwho fled an oppressing economy was generally straightfor-ward. For instance, Ulysses Brown left Georgia

because I has tired of plowing a mule all day forthirty cents a day. I came to Florida to bettermy condition. I started to work on the farm fora dollar a day. I was digging ditches forirrigation, digging stumps and trees for clearingland for farming. That's the kind of work I did.That and driving tractors.

Mr. Brown's response typifies the majority of responsesamong the black farmers who sought a new home in moving toBoca Raton. New residents were often motivated throughcontacts with family members or friends who had a priorpersonal acquaintenance with the community or locale.Brown himself joined friends who had moved earlier; MaryLee Jenkins and her husband met her brother who was livingin the vicinity of Boca Raton; Walter Dolphus's uncle was aresident; and Tom Wright's mother moved to Florida to joinher sister in 1951. Emma Riggins commented:

10

PEARL CITY

Now I came to Florida because I had asister that was coming down here and she wantedme to come. She was named Elizabeth Johnson. .. . She said if I went down in the winter Icould have some work. We used to pick a lot ofbeans out on Butts Farm. I didn't come bymyself; I came by a truck coming down. Therewas this lady that stayed up there; her familyand some more were coming down in the season.People used to come down here in the season andshe would bring workers down here who likedfarming work.

Just as the oral histories revealed that the two majorsources of the new migrant populations rarely varied? theresponses underlined the fact that the motivating factor innearly all of the personal decisions to move to Boca Ratonwas economics. A better chance for higher wages was thedriving force in their relocation for many of the poorlypaid blacks. Without exception they sought new hope andadvancement within society in a new environment. Amongmembers of the black populace? who were the respondents? awidespread perception of economic opportunity in southFlorida existed. The rich lands in Florida offered anattraction to laborers and farmers? who eagerly embracedthe notion that a better life was possible. As Lois Martinstated? "Here in Boca Raton/ my parents could practicallylive off the land." Nearly all of the Pearl City residentsor their parents spoke of the possibility of home ownershipas a boon/ while many noted the appeal of life in a ruralsetting. The high quality of life in a small town wasoften mentioned as a determining factor in the decision tomove to Boca Raton.

The discussions contained in the oral histories clear-ly illustrate that there were few economic options in thelives of Pearl City residents. Farming was the mainstay.As George Spain underlined: "The biggest thing around herewas farming really." Only after the Mizner hotel waserected did other jobs become available for the blackresidents. For a long time everyone worked either on farmsor in the hotel? according to one source. '

In the 1930s the Boca Raton Club employed blacks forcertain jobs/ generally of a menial nature. At the clubblacks worked in the kitchen/ or as maids? or in the main-tenance department. Blacks simply were not employed inmanagerial level jobs. According to Henry James? for in-stance/ blacks could be employed only as bus boys; thewaiters and waitresses were whites imported from the North.James also emphatically noted that the club's owner in thelate thirties? Clarence Geist/ was a racist. He said/ "Betyou've never seen a segregationlist like this kind ofperson." Mr. James's view was also held by others in Pearl

PEARL CITY

City. Other jobs available for blacks at the time in-cluded: working in the club barbershop or locker room/ orcaddying for the white golfers on the club's course. Some-times caddies earned from ten to twelve dollars a day/which was considered good money. The club did provideliving quarters/ described as "small rooms/" for some oftheir black employees.

In the 1940s the army base provided additional oppor-tunities for black men in the region. Archie Carswellremembers/ "You had farmers out there/ you had some outthere that helped cook and some worked in the officers'mess and some with the Boca Raton Hotel and Club/ takenover by the Army." In George Spain's opinion? the instal-lation and construction of the military base had a signifi-cant effect upon the lives of the townspeople. He said"The base had 150/000 soldiers out there and the base couldhire a lot of people." The construction crews were com-posed of young black men and "people began to make a littlebit more money then. They started making money quite a bitby the hour/" Spain recalled.iB

Farming the rich/ productive soils in south Floridawas the principal way of life for blacks in Pearl City?despite employment at the club or air base. The oralhistory accounts offer a concise picture of the blacklaborer's daily life working on white-owned farms. For themost part/ blacks worked as day laborers on extensive truckfarms such as Chesebro Homestead/ or later in the 1930s onthe Butts Farm? which supplied fresh vegetables throughoutmuch of the eastern United States. A turn-of the centuryperiodical published by the Florida East Coast Railway/ TheHnmeseeker? advertised the area's wealth: "Tomatoes at allstages? snap beans being picked and sent North? eggplants?peas/ Irish potatoes/ strawberries? celery/ cabbage/ let-tuce/ onions/ turnips/ beets; in fact/ everything/ and alllooking thrifty and good enough to eat.

The Chesebro Homestead/ encompassing a large tract ofland near the Hillsboro Canal to a line north of CaminoReal/ bounded by Old Dixie on the west and the intracoastalon the east/ was owned by Frank H. Chesebro. He also hadland north and west of this area—nearer Pearl City—thathe farmed. Beginning in the 1930s August H. Butts main-tained extensive fields planted almost exclusively withstring beans/ and hired hundreds of black laboreres forpicking/ sorting? and harvesting the crops at Butts Farmwest of Boca Raton.

At first? workers on Butts Farm walked to the fieldsand walked home along unpaved? rocky roads at night. Inlater years the management at Butts Farm would send a truckto pick up the farm hands who gathered at Willie Wright'scorner grocery store. Amos Jackson remembers:

12

Far/r? workers at Chesebro Pineapple fields.Sheds were wood frame, covered with palmettofronds. Names of men are unknown.

Fran/c Chesebro built this house in 1903, south ofthe present Camino Real just east of the FEC RRtracks.

PEARL CITY

As many people as could pack on that truck couldget on. Everybody would get on; men» women/ andchildren. At Butts Farm they grew string beans.That was the big market in south Florida/ stringbeans. . . . They were paying ten cents a basket.Some people would pick a basket of beans in tenminutes.According to Ulysses Brown/ there were thousands of

field workers at harvest time on Butts Farm. Some lived inthe long wooden quarters provided/ others travelled fromBoca Raton/ Delray Beach/ Deerfield Beach/ Belle Glade/ orPearl City. No rent was charged for housing/ and wagesaveraged a dollar a day with no overtime. The workers' daywould begin at seven o'clock in the morning and last untilfive in the afternoon. Some respondents remembered twoblack foremen who over saw the field work. Work was yearround; the height of the bean season was in the wintermonths. In the summer/ the men would dig ditches to pro-vide the irrigation system for the farms. Those who plant-ed the fields worked by the "task/" so many acres per day.Field hands were either planters/ pickers/ walkers/ orgraders/ those who picked out the bad beans from thehampers.

Many of the black immigrant workers remained share-croppers/ rather than landowners themselves. Lois Martinbest defined sharecropping/ the most common practice forthe earliest Pearl City farmers:

That's when a person plows up the land/ buys allthe seeds and fertilizer and then you produce acrop and get a share of the money that is madeoff the crop.

One of the earliest notices of sharecropping was recordedat the time when lots were originally platted:

C.W. Blaine/ six acres in tomatoes/ one halfacre in beans. Blaine is a darkey and a goodone. He is working on shares. Land andfertilizers are furnished him against his labor.He has no capital but his two hands and a littlecredit. He has shipped over two hundred cratesof beans/ selling for $3/ and for his six acresof tomatoes he will clear a good thing.Generally/ the whole family went to the farms; mothers

picked beans while children/ even at five years of age/played in the fields. Beans were the staple crop. BudJackson's mother/ like all of the women/ picked beansduring the season. She recalled/ "That was every day/ allday/ because you planted beans every day/ all day and soyou had beans coming up/ beans growing/ beans with smallbeans on it/ beans with larger beans and beans ready topick at all times.

PEARL CITY EDUCATIONAL/ RELIGIOUS, AND CULTURAL PATTERNS

Through the voices of both the first and second gener-ations of Pearl City inhabitants/ the basic economic condi-tions and actual daily patterns of life have become morefully documented as significant aspects to the culturalhistory of the black migrant worker.

Bean fiei

Whole families picked beans west of Boca Raton.Mr. Butts insisted young children attend schoolhalf-day before going to the bean fields.

During the formative early years of Pearl City 'shistory/ between 1915 to 1920/ the demands of settlementand economic adjustment precluded any formal structure foreducation within the local sector. Indeed/ the traditiorof schooling hardly embraced children of the black race irthe South at this time—nearly half a century since the endof the Civil War. Compared to other minorities/ blackcitizens had few opportunities for educational advancementand the quality of learning was a secondary nature. Theoral accounts have provided details that describe the edu-cational system that did exist for Pearl City children andaddress some of the at t i tudes that prevailed among theresidents. These recollections are almost the only authen-tic sources that provide a record which documents theeducational lives of Pearl City's people.

The f i r s t school in Boca Raton was in Long'spackinghouse in 1908 which was located several blocks soutl:of Palmetto Park Road. But only white children attended.During those ear l ies t years in Pearl City the childrertoiled in the fields alongside their parents. The heritageof most of the migrants contained l i t t l e in the way oisupport for the notion of education. Schooling was ofsecondary importance. There was more concern for earnincwages and working daily in the fields to help maintain Ebare subsistence. Ulysses Brown recalled that in lateiyears the children who worked in the fields were truckedfrom Butts Field to Roadman Elementary and back to thefields after school to pick three or four hampers of beansuntil sundown.

Alex Hughes/ one of the co-founders and builders of thef i rs t school house for black students in Pearl Cityirecognized the need for a school in Pearl City. Speaking tca newspaper writer/ he recalled/ "I decided to try to dcsomething about th i s . I went to the Board of PublicInstruction in West Palm Beach. They told me that if ]could find eight children/ they would provide a teacher. ]came right back and mustered up eight children/ and thejsent a teacher down/ Miss Robinson. They gave us a school;too—moved an old white school over here. That was ir1923.niy That f irst school was situated on the south sideof Eleventh Street jus t off Dixie Highway, Later araddition was constructed to the school which was then calledRoadman Elementary on Dixie Highway and Twelfth Street.

In the f i r s t schoolhouse there was one teacher whetaught grades one through eight in the wood frame one-roor

PEARL CITY

building. The toilets and water pumps were outside.Classes were organized by rows and there were black boardsat both ends of the classroom. Host of the former studentsrecalled the classrooms as disciplined and orderly. Des-cribing her elementary school teacher Mary Jenkins said»"She didn't spare the palmetto road and she kept order."There was also a discernible spirit of cooperation betweenteacher and parents.

Nearly all of the interviewees spoke well of RoadmanElementary* which became the main school in the thirties.The school had three classrooms* a small library/ akitchen* and bathrooms. Mrs. Ashley was the first teacher;and others included Annie Mae Walker and'Ann Collier. Therewas no high school in Pearl City for black students.Carver High School in Delray was the only all-black highschool in the vicinity which was available to Pearl Cityteenagers. One of the respondents remembered having toride by bicycle to Delray Beach when the white schoolchildren travelled by bus. "The school bus would 200m byyou. Memories like that have stayed with me all theseyears."

Black baptism in the Hiiisboro River in the early 1900's.

PEARL CITY

The quality of teaching/ howeverr generally was not ata high level. Black teachers themselves were often not as.well educated as their white counterparts. In his inter-view/ Amos Jackson said that school books were passed dowrfrom whites. "We were always behind white schools/ ofcourse." Schools were segregated and the separate facili-ties offered only a limited quality of education to blacks.Segregation was the major determining factor which definedthe schooling system and available opportunities forblacks. As one respondent noted/ "Some of our blackteachers at that time were only high school graduates. . .There was deep segregation at the time."

The educational possibilities in Pearl City were un-like those that existed for the immigrants in Tampa in theearly twentieth century. Historians Gary R. Mormino ancGeorge E. Possetta wrote in The Immigrant World fif. Yboigity/ "The public school provided Latins with a sociallyapproved context for athletic competition and at the sametime accelerated upward mobility and the integration ofYbor City into mainstream Tampa.lUU Unfortunately/ theeducational opportunities for blacks in Pearl City reflect-ed the poverty in the Deep South/ rather than the mobilityevident in Ybor City.

The opportunities for recreation among the black youthof Pearl City in the 1930s and 1940s were limited to ac-tivities such as playing ball/ fishing/ swimming/ turning aturtle on the beach/ dancing in a local nightspot/ or goingto the next town of Delray Beach. The closest movie housewas in Delray Beach. Some of the recollections of thePearl City oral interviewees provide insights into thevarious activities which prevailed at the time.

Sports and fishing were two passions that prevailedin the memories of the respondents. Pearl City had abaseball team which played against other all-black teamsand most of the males recalled playing sandlot softball andbaseball as teenagers or youngsters. Pishing at Lake Idain Delray Beach/ in fresh water canals/ or in the ocean wasa popular pastime among the young. Archie Carswell con-firmed/ "Our recreation was fishing/ salt water and freshwater both. . . . I fished in the ocean with a king poleand we used steel line." For all the children swimming wasa regular sport/ but the beach was segregated. There was abeach/ recalled Henry James/ which had a certain' areareserved for blacks. "To get on the beach here in Boca/ wehad a little path north of the Pavilion. One little spot/you could go there/ but if you were caught in other places/they'd put you in jail. . They'd put you in jail forswimming on the wrong part of the beach/" he remembered.Jacqueline Harvey agreed; "there was a little place on thebeach just for Negroes. Back then before '65/ life growingup in Boca Raton for blacks was basically a little sad."

17

PEARL CITY

But George Spain did not recall that segregation was ever aproblem at the beach. He said/ "I remember just a coupleof cases wherein we had an influx of alot of people fromout of town would come into the beaches/ and people got alittle upset about it. But other than that/ I've beenwalking that beach since I was nine or ten years old. iwent to the beach anytime I got ready." He did say/ how-ever/ that "we didn't go into the Pavilion." Apparentlythere was a section of the beach traditionally reserved forthe blacks of Pearl City.

Amos Jackson spoke of the good times as a youngster inPearl City in this recollection:

The 20th of May was a big day to us. We'dhave big baseball games/ picnics on the beach/and Collins Spain used to carry his juke box orpiccolo/ as we used to call it/ on the beach hehad a generator. They called it the "dynamo."That would provide the electrical service for thebox. • . . There was discrimination on thebeach/ however. We had our colored beach andthey had their white beach.

Turning a turtle was a popular pastime which providedfood as well as recreation for the families Spain describedthe ritual:

To turn a turtle we used to wait until theycome out. They come out to lay their eggs and youget'm. You just turn them over and then you getyou a truck and you walk back from over on thebeach and . . . get a man that's in the communitywho got a truck and go over and get it. You putit on the truck and bring it back home. Then allthe neighbors and everybody gather around; sowhen you butcher the turtle everybody has theirpan and everybody gets some. So we'd eat turtleand fish. It was good/ too.

Louise Williams remembered clearly the good times whenr̂ aunt would have a picnic on the beach and Jimmy Goddarduld connect his piccolo [jukebox] to a generator/ andere would be music/ a fish fry/ and a keg of punch fore young people. And Mary Lee Jenkins recalled "lots ofxcnics on the beach. . . Between here and Delray/ we couldjo anywhere and cook your food and carry it with you andplay in the water. Oh/ that was lots of fun."

Alvia Fountain remembered a recreation hall by thechurch where socials were held/ and Walter Dolphus men-tioned the marble range in the center of Dixie Highwaybetween 11th and 12th Streets in the early days beforehere was much traffic on the road.

Homer Goddard's memories included these: We wouldrive to get into the little joints they had around us"e. . . . In these places we would drink and dance. We

• * • .

A man "Turning"a sea turtle. Today it is illegal todisturb turtle or her nest.

Present Macedonia A.M.E. Church.

19

PEARL CITY

used to go to a dance club called Capenili. Had a placeup in Boynton/ Club Capenili. We used to see all thelatest bands up there. I saw Louis Jones/ Buddy Johnson/Sweetheart of Rhythm/ Lonnie Hampton."

For the adults/ there seems to have been no organizedrecreation; social gatherings among friends and neighborsin each other's homes and in the churches were the norm.As Lois Martin recalled/ "When Joe Louis would fight orWayne Louis Jordan would sing the spirituals/ that's whenwe would congregate to hear the fight or hear the singingat one of those three houses who had them [radios]."

Traditionally and historically/ the church has servedas the focal point for social as well a religious associa-tions among the black communities of America. In PearlCity two black churches arose with their own small congre-gations/ each one distinct from the black congregations innearby Delray Beach and Deerfield Beach. The first churchto be organized was the Macedonia African MethodistEpiscopal (AME) Church/ which was completed in 1920. Hand-built by the field workers/ the frame structure/ now stuc-coed/ stands on a lot at 128 Northeast Eleventh Streetdonated by George Long. After the Methodist church wasorganized/ plans for the erection of the Baptist EbenezerChurch began to crystallize. Reverend J. H. Dolphusz WillDemery/ and others were instrumental in starting theEbenezer Church in 1918. Their building (completed in1921) also was erected on a lot donated by George Long.Later in 1950 the Friendship Church was organized as anoffshoot of Ebenezer. Several interviewees/ including

illie B. Evans/ recalled a church on Butts Farm called Newspe. "And after they sold the farm/ they moved New Hope3 Deerfield."

According to the interviewed residents/ the church was.he most significant institution in Pearl City. Churchmembers attended Sunday School/ the worship services/ andafterwards sang spirituals and visited with one another.Most often the parents instilled a real love of the churchwithin their children. Some members went to both churches.Bud Jackson recalled/ "The first and third Sunday we wentto Ebenezer/ the second and fourth we went to Macedonia andthat's how we operated for years and years." Generally/one worship service was held each week with the ministeralternating between them. At Ebenezer the congregationwould take Sunday lunches and all share after the services.Many respondents reminisced about the numerous socialevents that revolved around box parties/ where the womenould decorate picnic boxes and men would bid for thearticular boxes. Then the two would share the box dinner."•raer Goddard remembered the Methodist Youth Days/ thejrch picnics/ and the fish fries on the beach. In actualztr there was little to do socially except go to church.

PEARL CITY

That i n s t i t u t i o n represented a l l of the social aspects ofl i f e at the time in Pearl Ci ty .

: EBENKZER BAPTIST! CHURCH

PRI» WHIR PSDTKT rUIJP.C

»••'••» CHURCH,'";LUIH Jesus Chris

rn A, 1

Present day Churches.

21

MEDICINE AND BURIAL PRACTICES

According to the interviews/ the respondents weregenerally in agreement concerning both the practice ofmedicine in Pearl City in the early decade of the twentiethcentury and the subjects of death and burial among membersof the locale's black population.

In Pearl City there were no hospitals/ no doctors/ andno cemeteries for the interment of blacks until mid-century. Many Pearl City residents used home remedies ascures for ills because proper medical attention was verydifficult to obtain. An herb called "black draw" waspopularly used/ and asafetida was a home remedy for head-aches and colds. George Spain's mother was an integralmember of the communty. "My mother was a doctor herself.She didn't have no degree/ but she could pretty much doanything for a person. The whole neighborhood came to her.. she had all kinds of remedies. . . . Her name was AnnieHughes."

In the early days of Pearl City's history/ as recalledby Henry James/ there were county nurses that would attendto black patients and a Dr. Kaysem/ a white doctor inDelray Beach/ who would also treat blacks who were ill orsuffering. The few doctors in the vicinity included Dr.Windsor in Pompano r a dentist named Dr. Bass in Fort^uderdale/ and Dr. Mizell in Fort Lauderdale. Later theosest doctors who maintained offices were located inmpano Beach/ Delray Beach/ or West Palm Beach. Mary Leenkinsz an interviewee who studied to become a midwife attts Farm and later worked at a local hospital/ recalled

nat a county doctor was available at St. Mary's Hospitalin West Palm Beach where patients/ white or black/ did nothave to pay. Willie Mae Jackson remembered the BethesdaHospital in Boynton Beach. Pine Ridge Hospital in WestPalm Beach was the only one which served blacks; its staffof doctors and nurses were all black. Lois Martin felt "itwas so hard to see one [doctor] and plenty of times' you hadto stay on the outside/ you didn't have any waiting rooms.By the time you got in/ you are already well."

One local resident remembered: "But if your were realsick/ we had an old German doctor down in Pompano calledWindsor/ and there was one in Deerfield—McClendon. . • .They didn't come to your house. . . . It was fortunateenough in the community that there was always somebody inthe community that had a car to go. Everybody was workingtogether."

PEARL CITY

in the 1920s only Coleraan's Funeral home in West PalmBeach would embalm black bodies. It was the oldest* black-owned funeral home in southern Florida and survives today.According to Lois Martin/ "The bodies were embalmed backthen in the twenties, but they were only embalmed up inWest Palm Beach/ then brought down for the funeral and thenthe procession went into the cemetery in Delray forburial." Burial practices following a person's death havenot changed over the years in Pearl City. "Coleman hadbeen handling the dead» you know/ the black dead ever sinceI've been in Florida. Coleman had a place in Delray andthree places in West Palm Beach. When you died you calledthem and they come out and get the body and carry them upto Palm Beach and done what they had to do and brought themback out to the funeral/ just like they do now."

According to Emma Riggins/ the black community wouldcoalesce to assist a family when a member died. She com-mented/ "When a person died/ the people in the communitywould get together and take up a collection for the family/and would come together and fix food. I think they stilldo it now. I fix some when people pass away. Once we hada club here/ a prayer band club/ and if the people wouldcooperate with us herer we could have helped many a sickpersons. . . but our race won't cooperate with nothingthat's going to help them."

No graveyard for blacks existed in Boca Raton/ al-though there was a cemetery for whites. It was situatednear the railroad tracks near where the City Barn (equip-ment storage) is presently located. No blacks from PearlCity were buried in Boca Raton; all the dead were taken tothe Delray Beach cemetery/ located near Eighth Avenue andGermantown Road until 1960. There burials were at firstsegregated/ but later integrated. Henry James noted/ "Evenin death/ we were still segregated and to a certain degree/its still that way."

'i'^

Mrs. Emma Scott walking south on Dixie Highway.

23

LEGAL STATUS OF PEARL CITY RESIDENTS

Although the "peculiar institution" of slavery/ whichfor so long was perpetuated throughout the American South,had ceased legally to exist? the roots of racism remainedfirmly implanted in America and particularly in thesouthern states. Certainly the major factors which contri-buted to its continuance/ the economic exploitation of aminority group and a class system in which ethnicity was adefining feature/ permeated the area of Boca Raton in thelate nineteeth and early twentieth centuries. Major agri-cultural production and the white hegemony so inherent tothe South's plantation system carried over to describe theracial division in the Boca Raton area.

Legal records reflect the formal documentation of thecreation of the Pearl City subdivision. In a letter datedMarch 3/ 1911/ to Thomas M. Rickardsz George A. Long dis-cussed a fifteen-acre parcel belonging to Rickards (betweenTenth and Twelfth streets today) which could be platted forresidential use by the black workers. In response,Rickards wrote: "I understand that we have some 15 acresand if the darks start in there it may well be to keep onselling to them and thus have them segregated." Longanswered in another letter/ "Now is a good time to startthe colored addition to Bocaratone.n^u On April 26/ 1915/an auction was held to sell the lots which had beenallotted to be sold to blacks. Thirty lots were sold forprices ranging from twenty-five to fifty dollars a lot. OnApril 28r 1915 Long wrote to Rickards describing theauction: "The people who bought wish to build and livethere and they are all good pay. . . . Colored BocaRatone which is the most talked of town down there andeveryone who visited or bought it pleased." Monthlypayment plans were accepted and despite slow work seasonswhich brought cash delays and thus often jeopardized landpayments/ the new black landowners were able to retaintheir lands.

Segregation was a fact of life with regard tothe racial relationships/ yet most of the informants werereluctant to describe a totally negative view of thelegal/racial parameters that existed in Pearl City. Thecommunities were in fact segregated and all persons/ bothblacks and whites, remained in their separate communities.There seems to have existed over the years a relationshipof non-contact between the races. There were comparativelyfew racial problems in Boca Raton during the wartime era

Squadron F Boca Raton Army Airbase — World War II.

W. Hugh Brown came to Boca Raton in 1936 tojoin the two man police force. He became Chief ofPolice in 1937 and served for 34 years. He wasboth feared and respected and never carried agun.

• I

Left to right: Ethel Richardson and her motherLua Williams. The store is on 11th Street andwas operated by a Japanese named Tobias andlater by Sam Dolphus.

Vernell Fountain and unknown friendDixie Manor in background.

25

PEARL CITY

and during the soldiers' encampment at Boca Raton in the1940s. Nearly all of the respondents mentioned Chief HughBrown/ called "Brownie/" for over thirty years the chieflaw enforcement official with jurisdiction over Pearl City.Opinions on the chief varied. Emma Riggins noted/ "therewas a police chief named Brownie. I know him good becauseI worked for him/ day work. . . . He was a mean man/ theysay/ but there wasn't no trouble here either." Othersfound him to be a typical white man/ who demanded thatblacks remove their hats when speaking to him.

A process for addressing grievances existed within thecommunity government which apparently helped lessen anyracial tensions that arose. George Spain noted:

Its been rather quiet really/ as far as blacks andwhites. They've always had a pretty goodrelationship and we have tried over the years tokeep it that way. We keep troubles from comingup. I worked on a housing board for a couple ofyears—the Human Relationship Board—and the adhoc committee I worked on. What we tried to do isto make sure that we nipped most of that stuff inthe bud right away. . . . We didn't have anyreally big outbreaks here in Boca.

For Louise Williams/ the two communities were indeedseparate; "everybody lived in their own community."Individuals/ black and white/ were friendly. She recalled/"No problems to speak of/ like fighting among themselves/because you stayed in your community and did your thing/and they stayed in their community and did their things.""Mr. Brownie was a tough guy/" said Lois Williams. "Toughon the colored poeplez especially the colored men. He'dbeat them up. . . . He was really mean/ but eventually heturned to be a pretty good person. After the Army camehere and he had some incidences with the soldiers/ heturned out to be very nice."

The former city manager Alan Alford/ a white man/recalled "You were either a supporter or non-supporter ofChief Brown/ but during some troubled periods he keptharmony in the city of Boca Raton when Delray was havingproblems." Generally/ Chief Brown was credited with main-taining a calm atmosphere where racial conflict did notarise.

26

EPILOGUE

This retrospective glance into the lives and attitudesof Pearl City residents indicates that the societies of theblack man and the white man were indeed s e p a r a t e - -educationally/ residentiallyz and culturally; that racismwas a thread that ran through the fabric of the Boca Ratoncommunity as a whole. But Pearl City was no different thanany other southern city in Florida during the early decadesof the twentieth century. Pearl City remained a cohesiveall-black community whose inhabitants struggled collective-ly and individually to secure an economic foothold.

Local conditions/ economic/ geographic/ and social/were instrumental in defining the societal place of theblack people of Pearl City. The existing demand for farmlabor and the concomitant opportunities for employmentanchored the Negro immigrants to the lower echelon of theeconomic ladder in southern Florida during the f i rs t halfof this century. H i s t o r i c a l l y / the sole avenue foreconomic viability among the residents was to toi l in thefields as l abore r s / the backbone of south F l o r i d a ' sagricultural and farming system. Struggling as tenants andsharecroppers on lands owned by white farmers was at f i rs tthe only means for making a living. Land was cheap/ how-ever/ and as the years passed/ many of the Pearl Cityresidents who were interviewed/ were able to purchase smalllots or own t h e i r own homes. Slowly/ t r a in ingopportunities for skilled and semi-skilled jobs began toopen up. The Second World War era was a watershed—itushered in new opportunities for advancement. The PearlCity work force during the period of the 1920s was filledpredominantly with unskilled laborers/ who farmed theexpansive white-owned lands/ planting thousands of acresand producing the vegetable crops that provided theeconomic underpinning of American society.

Although some blacks were employed by the local hoteltrade or the federal air base by the 1940s/ only a handfulamong those interviewed held jobs in later years as cityemployees or in any other professional category. By the1950s and 1960s/ however/ a few of the minority immigrantsowned small shops/ grocery stores/ or neighborhood busines-ses. In that time frame i t becomes evident that theprimary goal of most black locals during the early years ofPearl City's history was/ according to those interviewed/owning a parcel of land on which to build a home.

27

PEARL CITY

Most Pearl City blacks possessed a strong will whichsparked a productive work e th ic / and a des i re to takeadvantage of ava i l ab le educational oppor tuni t ies . Mostindividuals seemed to have an appreciation for learning aswell as an awareness that schools could provide a route fornew and varied jobs. They realized for the most part thateducation represented a climb up the rungs of the socio-economic ladder.

On a social level/ a closeness and familiarity amongthe re s iden t s had pers i s t ed from the e a r l i e s t days andcontinues to permeate the community. Many spokesmen com-mented with g r e a t f e e l i n g about the s t rong sense ofneighborhood that his tor ical ly existed in Pearl City. Geo-graphically only a three or four square block area* PearlCity was never a "city" per se. I t was always a cohesivecommunity and each generation's members fe l t strong rootswith the place.

Two constants are clearly evident in the oral historyt ranscr ip t ions : that a general consensus of responses amongthe interviewees existed and tha t the local cul tura lins t i tu t ions were very strong. The real i ty of segregationand discrimination during the times prior to the enactmentof the 1964 Civil Rights Act? and even years thereafter/did not escape the minds and hearts of the Pearl Cityr e s i d e n t s . At t i tudes communicated through the oralh is tor ies reflected l i t t l e real anger or bi t terness . Someind iv idua l s / however/ did speak resent fu l ly against thepredominance of whites both economically and educationally/and decried the poor quality of schools/ roads/ and hous-ing. In spite of the strength of local culturalinstitutions in Pearl City/ it must not be forgotten thatgovernment power rested in the hands of whites/ and thatwhite injustices were perpetrated against those blacks whoventured outside the physical boundaries of Pearl City.This small community of minority Americans has for half acentury existed as a fairly stable group with strongcultural institutions. Pearl City was a result of theracism that ran so deeply in the Deep South and which wasfounded upon the twin p i l l a r s of discrimination andsegregation. Despite the inherent existence of a separateand unequal society/ Pearl City citizens/ many of them/were able to surmount the travails of economics and aforced social position to create powerful/ stable culturalinstitutions that provided effective socializing linksamong the inhabitants. It seems apparent that the world ofth.e Pearl City residents was a circumscribed one. Yet/gradually/ the yoke of poverty lifted/ and with the passageof time/ the black migrants and their families began towitness a gradual assimilation/ economically and socially/into American society.

A religious revival meeting in Deerfield— 1911.

i t -

***.

Chesebro Pepper farm at lunchtime.

*'-*v \

Mrs. Swanson and her dog "Jack" — Circaearly 1920's.

\

Who is this pretty lady? Does anyone know?

I-

I «••

Sa///e fTWrs. Jasper) Dolphus

~\

"1

James Goddard

Ambro George. One of Boca Raton's earliestblack settlers. His son O.D. George lives inMiami—Circa 1912-13.

Randolph Johnson standing in front of WillieWright's store. His daughter Trudy lives inPearl City.

Josephine Clark. Her husband was one of theearly preachers at Ebenezer Baptist Church.She has a daughter, Dorothy Overstreet and ason, Dr. James Clark of North Carolina.

Annie Mae Bussey Johnson. Born in 1906Georgia. Her sister Regina was Alex Hughtfirst wife. She has a son Theodore.

Palmetto Park Road looking West.

Chesebro Nursery — 77'me for a "Watermelonbreak." Left to right: Homer Goddard, Sr.; manidentified only as Lee; and Will Demery who diedin 1937.

Lila Mae Goddard, wife of James with Ella Maeand Marvin Goddard — late 194O's.

Se//e Demery with Pat and Barbara Demeryand Marie and Agnes Garner — Circa late1940's.

r-

Albert Stevens

This man has been identified as Joe Butlefishing guide. He lived in Deerfield"camped-out" in Boca Raton.

This group of pretty girls belonged to a club at Roadman School in 1938-40. Left to rightfront row— Dorothy Clark; Virginia Clark & Altamese Cooper. Teacher/sponsor; LillianBryant. Back row — Estella Glades; Elle Goddard & Lois Dolphus.

Belle Demery and her daughter Sarah(Demery) Colden, the first black childborn in Pearl City. Mrs. Demery died in1957.

The third generation. Bottom row: unidentifiedexcept third from left, Walter Garner, Jr. Secondrow: Rosetta Anderson; unknown; Birthdaygirl Carolyn Brown, daughter of A. Broyles.Others unknown. Third row: Jasper Bryant andMattie Albury — Circa 1949.

Little girl in front is Barbara Demery, grandaughterof Will Demery. Her mother Dorothy is behindher. Girl in center is Carolyn Brown; LindaFountain and L. Chapman are to her right.

Minnie and Ambro George. Mr. Georgewas one of the first black settlers. Estelle Glades is the daughter of Idella Glades

and the grandaughter of Sallie and'Jasper Dolphus.

FOOTNOTES

\-'

• •' » * ' ": : ; V . . " . " ' . .

".''••••;

• . • i . • - * i ,

•v' tV- -'•I - . \ ** J

The C/ty named this recreational Park in PearlCity in honor of Alex Hughes who moved toBoca Raton in 1914 from Deerfield.

Legacy; Blacks

1. Barbara Allen and Lynwood Montell, F_r_om Memoryqjstory, p. 20.

2. Ibid.3. Ibid., p. 9.4. Richard Dorson, "The Oral His to r ian and

Folklorist," QxAL History; An Interdisciplinary AntholoDavid Dunaway and Willa K. Baum, editors, p. 296.

5. Diane Benedetto, "Childhood Memories," Spanfijver Papers, n.p.

6. Spanish River Papers (May 1976).7. Ibid. (February 1975).8. Ibid.9. Donald W. Curl, Palm Beach County: An. I l lus t rg

History, p. 107.10. Sharon Wells , Forgotten

Nineteenth Century Key West, pp. 7-10.11- Boca Ratan News (February 7, 1972) .12. Florida State Census, 1915.13. Homer Goddard interview, quoted in Arthur Eva

"Pearl City: Black Perspectives of a Black CommunitySoutheast Florida."

14. Ibid.15. Spanish River Papers (October 1977).16. Emma Riggins interview, quoted in Evans, "B1

Perspectives".17. Lois Martin interview, quoted in Evans, "B'

Perspectives" .18. George Spain interview, quoted in Evans, "B"

Perspectives".19. Joseph Schwert, note in T. M. Rickards's pers

file, 1984, Archives of the Boca Raton Historical Societ20. Boca Raton News (February 7, 1972) .21. Mary Jenkins interview, quoted in Evans, "B:

Perspectives".22. Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozze t t a ,

Immigrant World &f_ Ybor City: I t a l i ans and Their. L_ajNeighbors in. Tampa.r 1885-1985, p. 291.

23. Wells, Forgotten Legacy, pp. 7-10.24. George Long to T. M. Rickards, March 3, 19]

Archives of the Boca Raton Historical Society.25. Ibid.

Alex and Annie (Dolphus) Spain Hughes.

37

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Oral History Interviews:Oral interviews conducted in 1985 by Arthur S. Evans,associate professor of Sociology at Florida AtlanticUniversity/ for "Pearl City: Black Perspectives of a BlackCommunity in Southeast Florida." 1985 manuscript on file atthe Boca Raton Historical Society.

Public Documents:State of Florida, s, 1885, 1900, 1915.

U.S. National Archives, Department of Commerce, Census ofthe United States, 1880 (Dade County), 1890, 1900, 1910,1920.

Periodicals:Conrad, Mary Douthit. "Homesteading in Florida During the1890s." Tequesta 17 (1957).

Hudson, F.M. "Beginnings in Dade County." Tequesta 3(1943) .

Merrick, George E. "Pre-Flagler Influences on the LowerFlorida East Coast". Tequesta 1 (1941).

Pozzetta, George M. "Foreign Colonies in South Florida,1865-1910." Teqqesta 26 (1978).

Pozzetta, George E. and Harry A. Kersey, Jr. "YamatoColony: A Japanese Presence in South Florida." Tequesta 26(1978) .

Spanish River Papers. 1974-1986. Boca Raton HistoricalSociety.

Utz, Dora Doster.(1972).

"Life on the Loxahatchee." Tequesta 22

Books:Allen, Barbara and Lynwood Montell. From Memory: UsingQr_al Sources in Local Historical Research. Nashville: TheAmerican Association for State and Local History, 1981.

Bethell, A.T. The Early Settlers of the Bahama Islands.Norfolk, England: Rounce and Worley, n.d.

Browne, Jefferson B. Key West, The Old and The New- St.Augustine: Record Co., 1912.

PEARL CITY

Craton, Michael. A History o_£ the Bahamas. London: Coli1968.

Curl' Donald W. Palm Beach County; An I l l u s t r a t e d HistcNorthridge, Ca: Windsor P u b l i c a t i o n s , I n c . , 1986.

gj_fi rid a Almanac. 1983-84 . Del Marth and Marth J . Mareditors , Gretna: Pe l ican Publ i sh ing Co., 1983.

Glassie, Henry. Pa t t e rn i n £he_ Mater ia l Folk Cul tu re£h£ pastern United S t a t e s . Phi ladelphia: Universi tyPennsylvania Press, 1968.

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Peters, Thelma. Lemon City: Pioneering on Biscayne B1850-1925. Miami: Banyan Books, 1976.

Phillipps, P. Lee. Notes on the Life and Works of Berrfiomans.. Facsimile Reproduction, 1924 edition. Gainesvi]University Presses of Florida, 1975.

Riley, Sandra. Homeward Bound: A. History of the BahInlands to 1850. Miami: Island Research, 1983.

Tebeau, Charlton. A History of Flor ida . Coral GablUniversity of Miami Press, 1971.

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NOTES

August H. Butts

MAP OF

BOCARATON

Back Cover:1946 Map of Boca Raton

Front Cover:Alex Hughes photograph taken in 1964,age 80 years