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It has never been easy being an African American in Sarasota. Florida had been, after all, a slave state and prejudice flourished long after the Civil War and even after civil rights legislation. The first black members of our community to settle here – “negro” or “colored” were the nicer names by which they were known at the time – were, according to A.B. Edwards, Aaron and Jeannette Bryant, “brought in as, respectively, a household servant for one family…and a maid servant of another.” They were “taught how to work and to know their place. They later married and established their own home, and attended the white Methodist church and all community affairs.”

Two early settlers here were runaway slave, George Washington, who lived near today’s Sarasota Jungle Gardens, and Lewis Colson, who became a well-respected citizen, known as Reverend Colson. He had been with the group of land surveyors who had platted Sarasota in 1885 for the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company.

In 1897, for the consideration of one dollar, he sold to the trustees of the Bethlehem Baptist Church the property on Central and Seventh Street on which the Bethlehem Baptist Church was built. He was the first minister of the church, serving from 1899 until 1918. He and his wife Irene are the only African Americans to be buried in Rosemary Cemetery.

While Edwards remembers these people and others in the black community fondly, his recollections are sprinkled with descriptions that leave no doubt that while the early black settlers were respected and pulled their own weight, they were, for the most part, treated as second-class citizens.

John Hamilton Gillespie employed Leonard Reid, who came to Sarasota in 1900 as a manservant for many years, and while Gillespie was said to have sought out his advice and council and treated him humanely and with respect, he was not considered socially equal, and not just because of their different economic situations. Reid was black.

Reid worked with Gillespie in laying out Sarasota’s first golf course, one of the first in the state. Writer Richard Glendinning wrote of him, “he carried himself with the dignity of a Scottish chieftain.”

When he died in 1952, his passing was noted in the local papers, “Pioneer Negro Citizen Dies,” with his photograph, stories of his employment with Gillespie and his involvement in the community.

The Roaring ‘20s were among the hardest times for Sarasota’s African American community. The Ku Klux Klan was often a visible presence here, with cross burnings and other forms of intimidation, both physical and psychological. Sarasota’s branch of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Invisible Empire, was Klan Number 72.

Always looking for ways to legitimize itself – “No honest right thinking white American can conscientiously oppose the Knights”- they brought a Klan circus to Sarasota for the week of October 18-23, 1926, with “the best acts obtainable.”

In conjunction with the circus (actually the Bob Morton Circus under the auspices of the Klan) a Miss Sarasota was to be chosen from whichever of the contestants sold the most circus tickets. The winner would receive “gifts of an expensive nature…beautiful to behold.”

The fact that the Klan circus was so well received underscored the sentiment of the times. In conjunction with the circus, 354 men and 82 women, local Klan members, marched down Main Street in their white Klan outfits, watched by thousands who “greeted them with a cheery hail from friends who lined the way.”

The parade was preceded by two fiery crosses that “stood out in the tropical sky clearly and distinctly,” with the flag carried by the women members of the Klan auxiliary. 

It is not difficult to surmise the chilling effect on the African American community. The circus had been staged to raise funds to build a Klavern (Klan headquarters), which would “exceed anything of its kind south of Atlanta.”

On October 23, 1926, a deputy sheriff, perhaps emboldened by the recent Klan activity assaulted Robert Walthau, “a Negro,” with his gun and black jack and kicked him after he went to the ground.

Charges were filed for assault and when the deputy was arrested he justified his actions by saying that he had asked Walthau if he was working and offered Walthau a job unloading some trucks. Walthau replied it was none of the deputy’s business. 

Said the deputy, “I warned him not to talk to me in that manner…that he should remember to speak to a white man with respect the next time he was spoken to or he would get more of the same.”

The attack was witnessed by a Mrs. Walters, who made the complaint and took Mr. Walthau to her husband’s pharmacy, the Orange Pharmacy, to have his wounds dressed. 

Mayor Bacon had no comment about the beating for a Sarasota Herald reporter, and Sheriff Leon Hodges said he would “undertake a thorough investigation” and if it was warranted, would suspend the deputy.

These were the days when it was not unusual for authorities to “round up” African American men, charge them with “idleness” and order them to pay a fine. Since they often could not pay, they would be placed on the chain gang. One story in the Sarasota Herald was headlined, “Doing Nothing But It Costs. Sarasota Negroes Find They are Not Lillies of the Field.” The story related how twenty-nine black men were rounded up in a poolroom, charged with “idleness” and fined twenty-five dollars each, plus court costs. The arrests were made because the sheriff had received numerous complaints that it was impossible to find labor. 

Another story, “Judge Hard on Negro Idlers” noted that “every Negro seen loafing on the street was questioned.”

And on it went.

As the black population increased from the early settler years, their section of town became Overtown, north of downtown Sarasota, an area previously called Black Bottom.

Overtown’s proximity to Rosemary Cemetery became a concern for white Sarasotans, who considered moving the cemetery as “the location, having to pass through the colored quarters to reach the cemetery is not desirable.” The blacks were encouraged to move further north.

Developer C.N. Thompson and his son, Russell, tried to facilitate the move by opening a subdivision of “forty acres for colored quarters” with 240 lots that could be bought “on easy payments.” The subdivision was called Newtown and was “exclusive for colored people.”

(Editor’s note: To learn more about Black History in Sarasota, you may purchase a copy of Jeff LaHurd’s book, Sarasota – A History. It is available in local bookstores.

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