Banquet held by organization working to preserve history of Black neighborhood in G'ville
Those who have worked to preserve an historic Black neighborhood in northwest Gainesville were celebrated during a banquet.
Dozens of people attended the banquet to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Pleasant Street Historic Society, which hopes its preservation efforts will bring attention to the plight of the district that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
“It’s important to remember that time has passed and there are changes within the Pleasant Street neighborhood,” Dale Harris, president of the PSHS said during the banquet held Sunday at the D.R. Williams Fellowship Hall at 603 NW Sixth St. “This is truly a historic society, and we are honoring 40 years.”
Billed as the Claronelle Smith Griffin Distinguished Speaker Banquet, the event this year featured Rodney L. Hurst, an author, historian and civil rights activist, as its 12th guest speaker.
Other highlights of the banquet included Kristen Cooper receiving the Outstanding Student Award and special recognition given to founding member Mary Butler and longtime members Dotty Faisby and Melanie Barr.
Cooper is president of the NAACP Alachua County Youth Council and an Ambassador Scout with Girl Scouts USA. She recently dedicated a memorial bench at Lincoln Middle School in honor of the late Judge Stephan P. Mickle.
Memorial Bench: Girl Scout based in Gainesville dedicated bench at school in honor of late judge
During his speech, Hurst said if the Black community wants its history told accurately, it should teach it.
“The only way it is taught is if we teach it,” Hurst said. “We are the only people in mankind who allow someone else to teach our history. American history is incomplete, dishonest, and racist, yet we internalize it as if it's the truth and we don’t challenge it.”
Smith Griffin, a founding member of the society and its second president, was a descendant of families who first settled in the Pleasant Street community from the Camden area of South Carolina.
She bequeathed her home to the historic society in her will. The home was purchased by her great grandfather in 1872 and it remained in the family until her death. It was her desire that it be used as a Black history museum.
“It’s important for us to stay in the spotlight to find visibility to get it completed,” Harris said.
According to the organization, the Pleasant Street area has lost dozens of contributing houses since the national register designation, and some are still threatened.
The organization continues to raise money to renovate the home where the histories, artifacts, and accomplishments of Blacks in Alachua County will be exhibited.
The organization is in the midst of a $200,000 fundraising campaign to complete the renovations of the home, said Carolyn Cosby Edwards, a PSHS board member.
Her father, the late Dr. E.A. Cosby, was a dentist and his name as well as the late Dr. C.W. Banks, a family medicine physician, name are on the Youth Empowerment Center building on Northwest Sixth Street located next to the Gainesville Police Department.
“We’ve been doing behind the scenes work to collect artifacts for the exhibit,” Edwards said. “It’s important now more than ever to preserve our history with current residents dwindling.”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Pleasant Street Historic Society in Gainesville celebrated 40 years
