Tenth Annual Black History Month Tour for
African American Travel Club from Miami
Featured Historic Black neighborhood of Pearl City of Boca Raton, Florida
(Boca Raton, Florida) – The tenth annual Black History Month Narrated Bus Tour hosted for the African American travel club Retirees, Seniors & Friends featured the historically black neighborhood of Pearl City in Boca Raton, Florida. The tour to Pearl City in Boca Raton took place on Thursday, February 20, 2020 and hosted 60 members of the African American travel club who now live in the Miami-Dade County and Broward County areas.
The Retirees, Seniors & Friends is an African American travel club from Miami-Dade County and Broward County, Florida. Some of the club members are retired educators for the Miami-Dade and Broward County School Districts; and some are retired from successful careers with other government agencies and some were small business owners in Broward or Miami-Dade.
The Black History Month trip in Pearl City of Boca Raton featured the historic Macedonia AME (African and Methodist Episcopal) and Ebenezer Baptist Church. Plus, the tour traveled to Downtown Boca Raton to the Boca Raton Museum of Art to view the Tree of Knowledge Sculpture by Maren Hassinger. The sculpture was inspired by the historic Banyan tree in Pearl City that has stood strong for more than 100 years.
The Black History Month Narrated Bus Tour to Pearl City in Boca Raton was organized and narrated by Lori J. Durante and concluded with dinner at the black-owned Troy’s Barbecue in Pearl City.
Local NBC affiliate WPTV 5 featured the Black History Month Tour. https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/boca-raton/boca-ratons-pioneering-community-for-black-floridians
The historic black neighborhood Pearl City is an African American community platted in 1915 and is the oldest of all neighborhoods in Boca Raton. Pearl City was settled by the black farm workers in the area. Around 1908 Japanese colonists arrived in Boca Raton to farm pineapples on land purchased from railroad magnate Henry Flagler. The Japanese settlement was named The Yamato Colony which is the current location of Florida Atlantic University. The Japanese hired black Bahamians and African Americans as field hands, plus some black people sharecropped in the Yamato Colony. Black Bahamians and African Americans also worked on the Butts Farm, Chesebro Farm and Clint Moore Farm in Boca Raton. These workers were the Pearl City settlers.
T he two oldest churches in Boca Raton were both established in Pearl City in 1918 by those early black settlers. Macedonia AME (African Methodist Episcopal) was the first one of those two that were started in year 1918 and then about two months later Ebenezer Baptist Church was established. Both churches were built on land donated by George Ashley Long, one of Henry Flagler’s land agent. The donation of the land was the result of efforts by Pearl City African American early settler Alex Hughes who purchased a homesite lot from George Long and then convinced George Long to donate land for the churches. In addition to Long’s donation of land to the churches, he put forth the necessary support for a building that was formerly a school for white children to be moved to Pearl City and reopened as the Roadman Elementary School for black children in 1923.
During World War II, a United States armed services base was located in Boca Raton at the former Japanese Yamato Colony site but the African American soldiers were segregated in Squadron F and barracks for them were built in Pearl City. The housing, meals, training, and recreation for the African American soldiers were all separate from the white soldiers. Those original barracks are now some of the housing in the Dixie Manor area of Pearl City.
The Narrated Bus Tours of Historic Palm Beach County is an educational program of the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History which is a non-profit. Since 1999, the museum has curated 20 design-related exhibits and began its heritage tours in 2004 with the popular Narrated Bus Tours of Historic Delray Beach that’s hosted more than 8,000 people. Combining the attendance of the Narrated Bus Tours with the Taste History Culinary Tours of Historic Palm Beach County, which was added in 2011, more than 14,000 people have been hosted on these cultural weekly and monthly tours.