spady cultural heritage museum - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T07:45:37Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/spady+cultural+heritage+museumPhilanthropy Notes: Snow Scholarship Fund announces lineup for Boca’s Ballroom Battlehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/philanthropy-notes-snow-scholarship-fund-announces-lineup-for-boc2023-08-01T17:07:49.000Z2023-08-01T17:07:49.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}12175332660,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}12175332660,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="12175332660?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>Contestants (l-r) Shoshana Davidowitz, Dr. Patricio Espinosa, Danielle Rosse, Caroline Johnson, Lawrence Levy, Brad Winstead, Jamie Sauer and Rick Versace take a break during rehearsal at Fred Astaire Dance Studios in Boca Raton. <strong>Photo provided</strong></em></p>
<p><br /><strong>By Amy Woods</strong></p>
<p>Eight daring dancers will hoof their hearts out next month during the always popular fundraiser known as Boca’s Ballroom Battle.</p>
<p>Benefiting the George Snow Scholarship Fund, the exhilarating event showcases the talent and philanthropy of the community, all to support educational opportunities for deserving students in Palm Beach County.</p>
<p>“We are thrilled to bring Boca’s Ballroom Battle back for another incredible year,” said Tim Snow, president of the organization. “We are grateful to all the participants, sponsors and attendees who help make this event a resounding success year after year.”</p>
<p>Boca’s Ballroom Battle will take place at 6 p.m. Sept. 23 at The Boca Raton. For more information, call 561-347-6799, Ext. 104 or visit <a href="http://www.ballroombattle.com">www.ballroombattle.com</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Stoops to lead board </span><span style="font-size:14pt;">of Community Foundation</span></p>
<p>The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties has appointed Jeffrey Stoops as incoming chairman of the board.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}12175333466,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}12175333466,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="104" alt="12175333466?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>Stoops first joined the nonprofit in 2019. He has served as vice chairman of the board, chaired the foundation’s community impact committee and coronavirus response fund, and was a member of the finance, philanthropy and strategic planning committees.</p>
<p>“The Community Foundation is a powerful organization with broad capabilities to do good in our community, and I’m elated to have the opportunity to help lead our organization as board chair during the upcoming stages of our 2022-2027 strategic plan,” Stoops said. “I look forward to continuing the foundation’s efforts and work to provide financial aid and support to those who need it most in Palm Beach and Martin counties.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-659-6800 or visit yourcommunityfoundation.org.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Center for Child Counseling names new board member</span></p>
<p>The Center for Child Counseling’s board of directors voted in Melissa Haley as a member to help the nonprofit move forward its mission of mental health care.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}12175335279,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}12175335279,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="99" alt="12175335279?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>Haley, founder and president of the Haley Foundation, will contribute her expertise in forging philanthropic partnerships to mitigate adverse childhood experiences.<br />The Haley Foundation supports health care for women and children.</p>
<p>“I understand through personal experience the importance of a childhood free of trauma and full of love and compassion,” Haley said. “Sometimes those elements are not available, and children suffer and grow into adults with difficulties and challenges that otherwise, with early intervention, may have been avoided.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-244-9499 or visit <a href="http://www.centerforchildcounseling.org">www.centerforchildcounseling.org</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Spady museum will receive grant for arts programs</span></p>
<p>The National Endowment for the Arts has approved a $10,000 donation to the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach.</p>
<p>The donation is a Grants for Arts Projects award to support a residency program and an exhibition scheduled for next spring, titled “Back for More: Pleasure in Abundance,” a follow-up to last year’s “Radical Pleasure.”</p>
<p>The exhibition pairs literary and visual arts.</p>
<p>“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects including the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum’s residency program, demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” NEA Chairwoman Maria Rosario Jackson said.</p>
<p>For more info about the museum, call 561-279-8883 or visit <a href="http://www.spadymuseum.com">www.spadymuseum.com</a>.<br /> <br /><span style="font-size:14pt;">Faulk counseling center seeking volunteers</span></p>
<p>The Faulk Center for Counseling, a mental health facility based in Boca Raton, is seeking dedicated volunteers to join the team.</p>
<p>Whether assisting with administrative tasks or helping with outreach programs, volunteers will gain valuable experience and contribute to the well-being of clients.</p>
<p>The center promotes well-being through a variety of free and low-cost mental health programs. </p>
<p>For more information, call 561-483-5300 or visit faulkcenterforcounseling.org.</p>
<p><em>Send news and notes to Amy Woods at flamywoods@bellsouth.net.</em></p></div>Philanthropy Notes: Junior League of Boca Raton names new board membershttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/philanthropy-notes-junior-league-of-boca-raton-names-new-board-me2023-06-27T16:14:18.000Z2023-06-27T16:14:18.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}12127401669,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}12127401669,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="12127401669?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>S<em>ome of the new board members of the Junior League of Boca Raton are (l-r): Brooke Kaplan, Nicole Stelzer, Victoria Matthews, Meghan Shea, Paige Gantt, Alana St. John, Amanda O'Brien, Michelle Coggiola and Rhian Warner. <strong>Photos provided</strong></em></p>
<p>A fresh leadership team was introduced at the Junior League of Boca Raton’s annual dinner meeting for the 2023-24 season.</p>
<p>Meghan Shea is president. Shea was preceded by Jamie Sauer, who served in the role for two years.</p>
<p>The 2023-24 board also includes: Michelle Coggiola, Paige Gantt, Brooke Kaplan, Victoria Matthews, Christine Mills, Alexis Nasti, Amanda O’Brien, Chase Papoy, Amy Procacci, Alana St. John, Nicole Stelzer and Rhian Warner.</p>
<p>Throughout the year, they and other league members will contribute more than 35,000 volunteer hours and provide more than $250,000 to support the mission of developing the potential of women and improving the South Florida community.</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-620-2553 or visit <a href="http://www.jlbr.org">www.jlbr.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}12127401863,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}12127401863,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="12127401863?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></span><span style="font-size:10pt;"><em>Richard Kwal and Dr. Gail Rubin-Kwal.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Boca Regional campaign receives milestone gift</span><br />Dr. Gail Rubin-Kwal and Richard Kwal have made a seven-figure pledge that will be acknowledged by the naming of the fountain outside Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Toby and Leon Cooperman Medical Arts Pavilion.</p>
<p>The “Keeping the Promise” campaign for Boca Regional continues to surge past its $250 million goal thanks to the couple and the ongoing generosity of the community.</p>
<p>“We cannot overstate our gratitude to the Kwals for this gift to our capital campaign,” CEO Lincoln Mendez said. “An incredibly generous gift like this will make a big difference for our hospital, and having it come from someone on our medical staff is profound.”</p>
<p>Dr. Rubin-Kwal is a member of the emergency medical team, where she has served for more than three decades.</p>
<p>“Our relationship with the hospital is strong and indelible,” she said. “We’re part of a great history here, and we are inspired by the hospital’s future.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-955-4142 or visit donate.brrh.com.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Spady Cultural Heritage Museum awarded grants</span><br />A speaker discussing disparities in health care, a tour guide answering questions about ancestral contributions, a gathering of neighbors in a community space and an interactive outlet for children to create art — each is a program that helps residents connect. Moreover, each is a program that organizers believe contributes to improved mental health.</p>
<p>Provided by the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, the programs recently received funding for their continuation.</p>
<p>“The museum is thrilled and heartened by the tangible support it is receiving from two significant foundations that are focused on the needs of its community,” said Charlene</p>
<p>Farrington, executive director of the museum.</p>
<p>The two foundations are the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, which awarded a $50,000 grant, and the Palm Health Foundation, which awarded a $25,000 grant.</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-279-8883 or visit <a href="http://www.spadymuseum.com">www.spadymuseum.com</a>.</p>
<p><em>Send news and notes to Amy Woods at flamywoods@bellsouth.net.</em></p></div>Along the Coast: Cool times in old placeshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-cool-times-in-old-places2022-08-30T15:32:54.000Z2022-08-30T15:32:54.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796637669,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796637669,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10796637669?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>The Grand Hall at Whitehall, Henry Flagler’s 1902 mansion in Palm Beach. A model of innovation in its day, the house is now home to the Flagler Museum. <strong>Photo provided by Henry Morrison Flagler Museum</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:14pt;">Beat the heat in five air-conditioned house museums open to public</span></p>
<p><strong>By Scott Simmons</strong></p>
<p>Let’s get this out of the way first — it’s hot!<br /> And, we know, we know: You’re looking for places to chill this never-ending summer.<br /> So, we invite you to get out of the house by cooling your heels inside a house.<br /> That’s right — inside a historic house, something built before there was air conditioning and interstates and, in some cases, electric lighting.<br /> The history of South Florida as we know it is fairly recent. But you don’t have to drive far to travel back in time at these houses of history.<br /> Best of all: They’re air-conditioned.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796635496,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796635496,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10796635496?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>The Spady Cultural Heritage Museum is in the former home of educator Solomon D. Spady. <strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The Spady Cultural Heritage Museum</span></p>
<p>The Spady Cultural Heritage Museum is dedicated to discovering, collecting and sharing the African-American history and heritage of Palm Beach County.<br /> The building from 1922 to 1957 was the home of Solomon D. Spady, a prominent African-American educator and community leader in Delray Beach. It marked its 20th anniversary as a museum last year. <br /> Black people arrived in Delray Beach in the late 19th century, migrating from the Bahamas, North Florida and the coastal communities of the Carolinas and Georgia.<br /> At that time, the South was deeply segregated — Jim Crow laws were in force, dictating how and where people of color could live, work and worship. <br /> Entrepreneurship was a necessary part of survival for Delray Beach’s Black residents, who had a thriving community separate from that of the white residents to the east. <br /> As for Spady’s Mission Revival house, built around 1925-26, it’s a stucco-over-frame two-story residence, with four rooms downstairs and four upstairs. It is filled with exhibits year-round.<br /> The museum is at 170 NW Fifth Ave. Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Info: 561-279-8883 or <a href="http://www.spadymarketplace.org">www.spadymarketplace.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796638691,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796638691,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10796638691?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>The Cason Cottage offers a peek at early 20th-century life in Delray Beach. </em><em><strong>BELOW RIGHT:</strong> The cottage’s furnishings reflect life in the early 20th century. <strong>Photo above by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star, below right provided by Delray Beach Historical Society</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796639059,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796639059,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="400" alt="10796639059?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>The Cason Cottage</span></p>
<p>Delray Beach has undergone many changes over the past century.<br /> But one thing remains the same — the Cason Cottage.<br /> Since 1989, the Delray Beach Historical Society has operated this modest frame vernacular 1924 structure as a house museum to help interpret the city’s history from 1915 to 1935.<br /> Its builder, the Rev. J.R. Cason, was a community leader who served as a municipal judge and as chairman of the Palm Beach County Board of Public Instruction. <br /> He also was the founder of Florida’s first orphanage, at Enterprise, in Volusia County north of Orlando. Cason United Methodist Church, a few blocks northwest of the cottage, was named for the reverend.<br /> The house is furnished to reflect life in the early years of the 20th century. The current exhibition is “Delray Beach: WWII Homefront.” <br /> The cottage is at 5 NE First St. Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Info: 561-274-9578 or delraybeachhistory.org.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796633656,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796633656,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10796633656?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>Whitehall, now the Flagler Museum, was Henry Flagler’s gift to his bride in 1902. <strong>Photo provided by Flagler Museum</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum</span></p>
<p>Like so many dwellings of its day, Henry Flagler’s Whitehall almost met the wrecking ball.<br /> But thanks to his granddaughter Jean Flagler Matthews, the house, built in 1902 as a wedding gift to Flagler’s bride, Mary Lily Kenan, endures as a testimony to his love.<br /> The Gilded Age palace left visitors to Palm Beach awestruck — the home even had central heating.<br /> After Flagler’s death in 1913, the house became part of the Whitehall Hotel, with an 11-story tower built behind it. The original part of the house was used for lobbies, card rooms, lounges, a bar and guest suites.<br /> When the hotel became obsolete in 1959, it seemed the house might be demolished. But Matthews raised the money to preserve the house once the tower was demolished. <br /> Over the decades, the museum has acquired furnishings original to the house. In more recent years, the place has been air-conditioned to stabilize it for the antiques and artwork on display. <br /> Flagler’s private railcar No. 91 is on display in the Flagler Kenan Pavilion.<br /> Starting in September, the museum will offer musical performances on select Sundays on Flagler’s 1902 J. H. & C. S. Odell & Co. organ in the music room and the 1901 Steinway and Sons model B art-case piano in the drawing room. <br /> The museum is at One Whitehall Way. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 5 Sunday. Info: 561-655-2833 or <a href="http://www.flaglermuseum.us">www.flaglermuseum.us</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796630091,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796630091,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10796630091?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>The Sample-McDougald House was built in 1916 in Pompano Beach. <strong>Scott Simmons/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The Sample-McDougald House</span></p>
<p>Old-timers may remember seeing the Sample-McDougald House on its original site, along the west side of Old Dixie Highway in Pompano Beach.<br /> Built in 1916, the majestic Colonial-Georgian Revival home stood alongside a very busy stretch of commercial highway, a testament to when Dixie was the main artery to Fort Lauderdale and Miami beyond, and Broward County was an agricultural hub.<br /> It originally was home to Pompano Beach pioneer and farmer Albert Neal Sample, for whom Sample Road is named. <br /> After Sample’s death in 1941, the house was sold to William and Sarah McDougald, whose family lived in the home until the 1990s. At that point the McDougald family donated the house to the Sample-McDougald House Preservation Society Inc., which raised the money to move the house to Centennial Park, where it now serves as a museum and events center. It boasts some original furnishings.<br /> Outside, the 5-acre Centennial Park also is home to a heritage garden, planted with seasonal heirloom fruits and vegetables. <br />The house is at 450 NE 10th St. Hours: noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Info: 754-307-5446 or <a href="http://www.samplemcdougald.org">www.samplemcdougald.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796621896,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796621896,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10796621896?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></span>The Stranahan House is Broward County’s oldest surviving building. Below is the dining room. <strong>Photos provided by Fort Lauderdale Historical Society</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10796627689,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10796627689,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="400" alt="10796627689?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>The Historic Stranahan House Museum</span></p>
<p>When Frank Stranahan, credited as Fort Lauderdale’s founding father, built this two-story wood frame house on the New River in 1901, the area that’s now home to skyscrapers was a wilderness. The house now is Broward County’s oldest surviving building.<br /> Frank and Ivy Stranahan took leadership roles in the community and donated land for public projects, but Frank Stranahan suffered economic misfortunes worsened by the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes. Friends who had invested in him also were ruined, according to the Historic Stranahan House Museum’s website. <br /> In 1929, he committed suicide, drowning himself in the New River in front of his home.<br /> The structure served as a trading post, post office, community gathering place, as well as a home to the Stranahans. Ivy Stranahan lived there until her death at age 90 in 1971. She left it to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and it later was bought and restored by the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society and the Fort Lauderdale Board of Realtors and opened to the public as a historic house museum in 1984. <br /> It’s open at 335 SE Sixth Ave. for guided tours only at 1, 2 and 3 p.m. daily. 954-524-4736 or stranahanhouse.org.</p></div>Along the Coast: Documenting a grim chapterhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-documenting-a-grim-chapter2022-06-29T16:57:46.000Z2022-06-29T16:57:46.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:12pt;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10605055052,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10605055052,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10605055052?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></span><em>Attorney Bryan Boysaw and Kenya Madison, senior director of Healthier Delray Beach, comfort each other after digging soil from near where Samuel Nelson was lynched in 1926 west of Delray Beach. <strong>Photos by</strong> <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Samuel Nelson was abducted from Delray Beach jail and lynched in 1926</span></p>
<p><strong>By Ron Hayes</strong></p>
<p>On June 19, 1865, Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, to inform about 250,000 Black men, women and children enslaved in the state that they were free, and had been for more than two years.<br /> Slavery was dead in these recently reunited United States, and Juneteenth was born.<br /> In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday, so a week before this year’s celebration, nine members of the Palm Beach County Community Remembrance Project met beside the C-3 canal west of Delray Beach to remind us that while slavery ended after the Civil War, lynchings did not.<br /> Four shovels poured soil from the canal bank into four gray buckets that Saturday morning, and then the nine men and women, Black and white, held hands in a circle over the buckets and bowed their heads in prayer.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10605058081,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10605058081,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10605058081?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>On June 11, the participants in the preservation of soil to remember the lynching of Samuel Nelson took time to pray and reflect. </em><strong>BELOW RIGHT:</strong><em> Jars will eventually join those of other victims in a memorial display in Alabama. </em></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10605070081,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10605070081,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="400" alt="10605070081?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>When Delray Beach celebrated Juneteenth the following Saturday, June 18, those buckets of soil would be there in the gym at Pompey Park, their first stop on a long journey of remembrance. <br /> “We scouted the area around the waterway and chose a spot where the soil looked rich,” explains Charlene Farrington, director of the S.D. Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray.<br /> No one will ever know exactly where Samuel Nelson’s body was found on the morning of Sept. 27, 1926, but this canal bank near the southeast corner of West Atlantic Avenue and Sims Road seems most likely.<br /> We don’t how old Samuel Nelson was, if he was a husband or father, or if he had really committed any crime. We don’t even know if Samuel Nelson was his name. But we do know where he was last seen alive.<br /> “In 1923, Delray Beach built a new city hall, fire department and jail at 14 SE Fifth Ave.,” says Mark Schneider, president of the county’s American Civil Liberties Union and a member of the Community Remembrance Project. “But that address no longer exists. The numbers jump from 12 to 20.”<br /> On the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 26, Nelson was locked in the new jail, accused of attempted criminal assault on a white woman in Miami. The next morning, the jail door was found battered open. Nelson was gone and a short time after, his body, riddled with bullets, was found beside a canal 4 miles west of town.<br /> Three weeks later, on Oct. 17, <em>The Palm Beach Post</em> noted the murder.<br /> <em>“NEGRO IS TAKEN FROM DELRAY JAIL AND LYNCHED</em><br /> “Samuel Nelson, alias Joseph Johnson, negro, was taken from the jail at Delray and lynched. …”<br /> The brief report had been written by The Associated Press in Miami. The story was on Page 6.<br /> Both the <em>Pensacola Journal</em> and <em>Tampa Tribune</em> published the same AP story that day.<br /> <em>“NEGRO TAKEN FROM JAIL AND LYNCHED BY MOB AT DELRAY,”</em> the <em>Tribune</em> headline read, but the story never mentions a mob, only “unidentified persons.”<br /> The local newspaper took three weeks to report the lynching, but the Delray Beach Town Council needed less than 12 hours to address it.<br /> At its regular meeting that Monday evening, the council discussed appropriating money for the local Chamber of Commerce. It talked about registering real estate brokers. It granted Mr. W.P. Brown a one-week extension on his septic tank.<br /> The lynching of Samuel Nelson was the last item on the agenda.<br /> Police Chief W.M. Croft told the council that he had refused to turn Nelson over to a stranger who claimed to be from Miami, and as far as he knew, Nelson was still in the jail at midnight.<br /> The council then voted unanimously that the Police Department “should be exonerated and be declared free of any blame or neglect in regard to the above mentioned jail delivery.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">***</p>
<p>There is one further curiosity, though.<br /> On Sept. 18, a little more than a week before Nelson’s death, the historic 1926 hurricane had made landfall as a Category 4 storm just south of Miami, bringing storm surges up to 14 feet in Coconut Grove and tearing the roofs off buildings as far north as Lake Park. Could the stranger Chief Croft claimed to have met really have journeyed from Miami to Delray Beach after that destruction? <br /> All we know of Samuel Nelson’s lynching ends there, but those four buckets of soil collected in his memory have only begun their journey.<br /> Sometime in 2023, the Remembrance Project hopes to see the soil displayed in jars at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Peace & Justice Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. The jars will be etched with the words “Sam Nelson, Delray Beach, Florida, September 27, 1926.”<br /> They will not be alone.<br /> Founded in 1989 by civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative works to free wrongly convicted prisoners and operates Montgomery’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice.<br /> In 2015, the EJI published <em>Lynching In America</em>, now in its third edition, which has documented more than 4,000 lynchings in the Southern states between 1870 and 1950, including 319 in Florida, the most per 100,000 of all the Southern states.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">***</p>
<p>Samuel Nelson is one of two known lynchings in Palm Beach County, and not the first. <br /> On June 7, 1923, Henry Simmons was taken from a rooming house in West Palm Beach and hanged from a tree south of The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach for allegedly being involved in the killing of police officer J.N. Smith, who had stopped three Black men for stealing turtle eggs.<br /> The Remembrance Project is working to confirm the site of Simmons’ hanging before arranging to collect soil there. <br /> In addition to the soil collection, a high school essay contest in the coming school year will satisfy the second of three requirements communities must complete to be represented at the EJI memorial.<br />The placing of memorial markers at Palm Beach County’s two lynching sites is the third.<br /> Until then, the soil that became a memorial made its first public appearance in the Pompey Park gymnasium on June 18, a centerpiece of the Juneteenth weekend in Delray Beach.<br /> The Boynton Beach Community High School band played and politicians spoke.<br /> “This day will be recorded in our nation’s history and tell the story of who we are as a people,” the Spady Museum’s Farrington told the crowd of about 200 filling the bleachers. “It will make Palm Beach County eligible to receive a monument from the Equal Justice Initiative bearing the names of two men who were lynched here in the 1920s.”<br /> County Commissioners Mack Bernard and Gregg Weiss read a resolution recognizing the importance of both the soil ceremony and the federal Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, signed into law March 29.<br /> A video of the soil collection was shown, and Yvette Norwood-Tiger sang a moving, mournful rendition of the Billie Holiday classic <em>Strange Fruit</em>.<br /> “Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,<br /> “Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”<br /> The four buckets of soil from the place where Samuel Nelson’s body was found almost a century ago waited on a table until finally the men, women and children, young and old, Black and white, came down from the bleachers and formed two long lines.<br /> Each was handed a small mesh drawstring bag containing a plastic envelope and a wooden ice cream spoon.<br /> One by one they dipped a bit of soil from a bucket and put it in the plastic bag. That was theirs to keep. And then they added another spoonful to the glass jars bound for Montgomery.<br /> Nearby, city Commissioner Shirley Johnson watched.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10605070482,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10605070482,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10605070482?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>On June 18, the soil was part of a Juneteenth celebration at the Pompey Park gym. Delray Beach Commissioner Shirley Johnson watched as people spooned soil into bags as keepsakes.</em></p>
<p>“I’m 76 years old and I grew up here in the northwest section, and I never knew about Samuel Nelson,” she said. “Why didn’t I know about this? There was no mention in school. Nobody ever said his name. I didn’t hear about it until 2017 when Bryan Stevenson came to the Spady Museum and he told me, ‘You know, there were two lynchings here.’”<br /> Johnson assembled the little bags of spoons for the ceremony, all 200, so she watched intently as the slowly moving lines made use of them.<br /> “This should be listed as an unsolved murder in our police files,” she said. “I’m going to ask the police if they can reopen this case. Don’t investigate, just keep it open.<br /> “I know we’re never going to know who killed him, but that way Sam Nelson will be remembered.”<br /> She sighed.<br /> “And he was just one of thousands.” </p>
<p><em>For more information about the Palm Beach County Community Remembrance Project and the Equal Justice Initiative, visit <a href="http://www.pbcremembrance.org">www.pbcremembrance.org</a> and <a href="http://www.eji.org">www.eji.org</a>.</em></p></div>Delray Beach: Chess, anyone? A beachfront game of strategyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-chess-anyone-a-beachfront-game-of-strategy2022-03-02T18:10:47.000Z2022-03-02T18:10:47.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10165345897,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10165345897,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10165345897?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></strong><em>Tristen Willis, 10, studies the board as he competes with Deb Peters at the Delray Beach Pavilion. It’s part of James McCray’s effort to teach chess, mainly to young players. <strong>Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>By Ron Hayes</strong></p>
<p>By 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday, well before the parking lots filled and beachgoers crowded State Road A1A and Atlantic Avenue, James McCray and Samuel Spear Jr. were busy preparing the Delray Beach Pavilion. They arranged a basket of bananas, apples and mandarin oranges. Filled a bucket with bottles of iced tea and purified water. Displayed the T-shirts neatly. <br /> Then they positioned seven small folding tables and chairs along the Pavilion’s rail and placed a chessboard and hand sanitizer on each. <br /> Finally, McCray hung the banner. “Community That Plays Together Stays Together/James Chess Club, Est. 2020.” <br /> “The appeal of chess is love,” he said. “When you learn to love a game, you learn to love yourself.”<br /> Since June 2020, James McCray has taught twice-weekly chess games for boys and girls at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum on Northwest Fifth Avenue. The children think they’re learning how to play a game. <br /> McCray, 72, believes they’re learning how to live a life. “In both chess and life, the only opportunity for growth comes from experience,” he reasons. “With experience, you get better at both chess and life.” <br /> On Dec. 29, McCray arranged to set up at the Pavilion, his first effort at spreading his love of chess, and life, to the larger community. This Feb. 19 event was his second downtown gathering.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10165350677,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10165350677,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10165350677?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><em>James McCray plays chess with Samuel Spear Jr.</em></p>
<p><br /> <span style="font-size:14pt;">Chess vs. life decisions</span><br /> Tables set, refreshments ready, McCray and Spear waited for players to appear. <br /> “It’s all in the hand of God,” McCray said. <br /> And they waited some more. James McCray’s fledgling effort to make chess a public pastime in Delray Beach has noble predecessors. <br /> In 2017, a chess enthusiast in the Netherlands named Jesus Medina Molina set up three chess sets in a public park in the city of Utrecht, and “The Urban Chess Project” was born. To date, more than 40 cities throughout the Netherlands have followed Utrecht’s example and placed games in their public parks. New York City’s Washington Square Park is famous for its outdoor chess tables, where fabled master Bobby Fischer once played, and Chicago offers chess tables in four of its public parks. <br /> The most famous outdoor chess game dates to 1454 in the northern Italian city of Marostica. Sept. 12, 1454, to be exact. According to the story, two noblemen fell in love with Lionora, a daughter of the local lord, Taddeo Parisio, and challenged each other to a duel for her hand. <br /> However, Parisio was a peaceful man, so he decreed that they would play a game of chess rather than risking bloodshed, with the winner winning Lionora and the loser her younger sister, Oldrada. The moves of that game, and the winner, are lost to history, but on Sept. 12 in even-numbered years, thousands gather in Marostica’s town square to watch human chess pieces re-create that legendary game on a chessboard 58 feet long on each side. <br /> McCray is happy if he can keep his Pavilion tables busy with his students and passersby enjoying a game he’s played for 50 years. <br /> “Same old story,” he says. “We had neighborhood games, and chess was different from basketball and baseball. I went for chess because I don’t like to be hit.” <br /> Eddie Rodgers, 69, a West Palm Beach native, has been playing chess with McCray for 40 years. <br /> “James uses chess for his life decisions,” says Rodgers, whose father taught him the game. “To me, it’s a game first, but I realize its importance in making life decisions. Some pieces are more or less important in your life, just as some decisions you make are more or less important.” Samuel Spear Jr. is a relative newcomer, having played only 11 years. <br /> “It brings people together,” he says, “and you can pause a minute. You can just sit there and study the board. It’s not like some games, where you have to go crazy.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">‘It’s a mindset game’</span><br /> Shortly after 10 a.m., Mary McKinzy of Riviera Beach arrived with her grandchildren, Tristen Willis, 9, and Taya Willis, 6. <br /> Tristen, a third-grader at Trinity Christian School, is the chess player. Taya nibbled an apple. <br /> “I play golf, too,” he announced. “I like both. With golf, I get to play with people, and when I get bored I can play chess alone.” <br /> This Saturday morning, he played chess with Deb Peters, a retired elementary school teacher from Long Island who taught computer chess to 500 kids. Chin in hand, he studied the board. He frowned. He moved. She frowned. She moved. They moved. <br /> Does he smell victory? <br /> “I sure do,” he said, and his sense of smell proved true. They shook hands. Peters was gracious in defeat.<br /> “Did you let him win?” a cynical spectator asked. <br /> “Absolutely not!” she exclaimed. <br /> “It’s fun to win,” Tristen said in a postgame interview, “but even if I lose I’m happy because I got to play. And even if you lost, you can always win the next one.” <br /> This is one of the life lessons McCray wants to impart.<br /> “I try to teach the little ones you don’t have to always be successful to be happy,” he says. “And you will lose sometimes. But make sure you don’t give up.” <br /> Now Thomas Norris arrived with his son, Ethan, 9, a third-grader at Boca Raton Elementary School. <br /> “James taught me to play,” Ethan said. “It’s a mindset game, not like video games like Fortnite and Call of Duty. I play those games, but not as much. I get bored. I never get bored with chess.” <br /> What he’s learned, Ethan said, is that chess has three kinds of moves: dumb moves, great moves and reasonable moves. <br /> “Never make a dumb move or a bad move,” he said. “Don’t give your pieces away, and don’t rush. Take your time.” <br /> Patience is another life lesson McCray teaches through chess.<br /> “Be patient and appreciate every moment,” he tells young players, “both in life and in chess. And either way, you’re going to lose someday.” <br /> Ethan played until his father returned with a burger and fries to interrupt the game. Ethan ate the burger and fries, then fell asleep on a bench.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10165347073,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10165347073,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10165347073?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><em>William Horan and Matthew Heles play chess at the Delray Beach Pavilion. They walked up from the beach and found the chess event in progress. <br /> </em></p>
<p>As morning turned to afternoon, a few more players appeared, a few kids, and even more adults, passersby who stopped for a quick game in the Pavilion’s shade. <br /> Among them was a large pink flamingo named Matthew Heles, 19. <br /> Climbing the Pavilion steps from the beach, Heles wore one of those inflatable flamingo costumes, cleverly tricked out to make it appear he’s riding the giant flamingo. He was accompanied by his friend William Horan, 27, dressed like a normal human being. <br /> “Chess is great for learning patience,” Heles said, “and learning to think ahead. I’m very impulsive — obviously, I’m wearing a pink flamingo costume — so it’s good for me to sit down.” <br /> Heles and Horan sat down and played a game. <br /> The flamingo won.</p>
<p><em>The James Chess Club meets Thursdays 5-7 p.m. and Saturdays noon-2 p.m. at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, 170 NW Fifth Ave., Delray Beach. Lessons are for children, but all ages are welcome to play. For more information, call 561-352-7145.</em></p></div>Delray Beach: Boca art museum in talks to take over Cornell Museumhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-boca-art-museum-in-talks-to-take-over-cornell-musuem2022-03-02T15:30:17.000Z2022-03-02T15:30:17.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Related Story: </strong><a href="https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-cra-demands-financial-records-from-departed-old-scho?edited=1"><strong>CRA demands financial records from departed Old School Square management</strong></a></p>
<p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong></p>
<p>The Boca Raton Museum of Art is in talks to take over the operations of the Cornell Art Museum on the Delray Beach Old School Square campus.<br /> City Manager Terrence Moore told commissioners March 1 that he is talking with the Boca museum about running the Cornell Art Museum for 18 months. The costs will be determined during the negotiations.<br /> “I’ve had a challenging time containing my excitement and enthusiasm for this relationship,” Moore told the commission before introducing Irvin Lippman, executive director of the Boca Raton museum. <br /> Lippman said he and his museum’s board were concerned that the Cornell Museum had been closed to the public. <br /> “We decided to offer our assistance,” Lippman told the commission. “It will be a full partnership, not an annex of the Boca Raton museum.”<br /> Lippman talked about the benefits of a partnership with a nationally accredited museum that must adhere to the highest budgeting and accounting standards, establishing a Delray Beach advisory board, and the possibility of creating an artist-in-residence program in Delray that could have a regional reach.<br /> “It sounds very exciting,” said Mayor Shelly Petrolia. “We’re very pleased to have you here today.” On Feb. 24, Moore went to the Delray Beach Preservation Trust meeting, as part of his visits to all nonprofits in Delray Beach. He talked about the relationship between the Boca Raton museum and the Cornell. <br /> “I have been to the Boca Raton museum for the past number of years,” said Sandy Zeller, a Preservation Trust executive board member who also sits on the city’s Planning & Zoning Board. <br /> “I like how they expanded and was impressed with their Machu Picchu exhibit,” he said on Feb. 25. “It is of international quality, not just local artists showing their stuff.”<br /> That exhibit features 192 artifacts from the royal tombs of the ancient Incan retreat of Machu Picchu in Peru. It also has a virtual reality upgrade that transports visitors to the site and its iconic facets, such as the Temple of the Sun.<br /> The exhibit was featured in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Wall Street Journal</em> and <em>Miami Herald</em> newspapers. It has helped the Boca Raton Museum of Art triple its membership, Lippman said Feb. 27.<br /> The Boca Raton museum board waited until the city’s lease ended with the old operators of OSS before contacting Moore. It did not want to get involved in the dispute between the city and the former operators.<br /> “We met with him on Feb. 14 about running the Cornell,” Lippman said. <br /> The Boca museum’s executive committee then met on Feb. 17 and approved “moving ahead with discussions to manage the Cornell Museum,” according to a Feb. 18 email from Lippman to Moore. <br /> “We will come as an established institution with strong curatorial and marketing departments,” Lippman said.<br /> The first thing the Boca museum would do is hire a full-time curator and set up an advisory committee, Lippman said. It would not take over the creative arts classes that are held in the Crest Theatre building. Renovations stopped there last summer amid a dispute between city officials and the former operators of OSS.<br /> Lippman pointed out that the Boca Raton Museum of Art already has relationships with two Delray Beach nonprofit institutions, the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum and the Milagro Center. <br /> Three of its board members either live or have businesses in Delray Beach, he said. About half of the Boca Raton museum members live in Delray Beach or Boynton Beach. <br /> “It will never have Boca Raton in its name,” Lippman said of the Cornell. “It will have its own identity.”</p></div>Tots & Teens: Boynton Beach children’s museum director excited about new featureshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/tots-teens-boynton-beach-children-s-museum-director-excited-about2021-11-30T16:04:25.000Z2021-11-30T16:04:25.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9865110280,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9865110280,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9865110280?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>Schoolhouse Children’s Museum celebrated its 20th anniversary in October with a ribbon cutting and butterfly release. </em><strong>Photo provided</strong></p>
<p><strong>By Janis Fontaine</strong></p>
<p>The Schoolhouse Children’s Museum, like the rest of the community, is bouncing back from the coronavirus pandemic. Cleaning protocols remain in place — the museum closes for cleaning from 12:30 to 1 p.m. daily — and reservations are highly recommended, but there are a lot of new activities and things to see. <br /> “It’s an exciting time,” said Executive Director Suzanne Ross. “We’re still very sensitive to safety so we are open at reduced capacity.” Visitors without reservations could be turned away, Ross said, but “we’ll do everything we can to accommodate people.” <br /> The pandemic did give the museum time to undergo some improvements and upgrades, with more on the way. One big addition for little hands is Toddler Cove, designed for ages 3 and younger. It’s full of “manipulatives,” Ross says, like the gear table and lots of puzzles, and everything is carpeted and soft-surfaced, thanks to a grant from the Henry Nias Foundation and Vicki Tate, one of the foundation’s leaders. <br /> Coming soon is Mangrove Manor, which will allow kids to explore three levels of mangrove growth from the ground up, with interactive challenges on each level. At the top level, domes will re-create sounds of the beach and mangrove forest. <br /> Mangroves are protected in Florida because they are so important. They help stabilize the coastline ecosystem and prevent erosion, filter pollutants, improve water quality, nurture our estuaries and provide a habitat for wildlife. Impact 100 provided funding for the installation. <br /> Ross also said two popular events will return in 2022. The Princess and Superheroes Day will be back (“bigger and better than ever”) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Jan. 29 at Centennial Park & Amphitheater, 120 E. Ocean Ave. <br /> The museum’s annual fundraiser, the Schoolhouse Bash, will be April 8 at the Arts & Cultural Center at 125 E. Ocean Ave. <br /> The museum just celebrated its 20th anniversary. <br /> The building can trace its roots to 1913, when it was one of the first schools in Boynton Beach. <br /> It closed as a school in 1990 but continued to be used for community programs. In 2001, it opened as the Schoolhouse Children’s Museum & Learning Center and after 20 years it remains a rarity.<br /> It is one of the few children’s museums in South Florida, Ross says, and the only one that provides an interactive, hands-on learning environment with the history of South Florida as its theme. <br /> It’s designed to let kids explore dozens of jobs from store owner to physician’s assistant. But for kids, job one is play.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;"><strong>If You Go</strong> </span><br /> The Schoolhouse Children’s Museum & Learning Center is at 129 E. Ocean Ave., Boynton Beach. <br /> <strong>Hours:</strong> 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 1-4:30 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday. The museum is open for members only from 9 a.m. to noon the second and fourth Mondays of the month. <br /> <strong>Admission:</strong> Free for members and babies younger than 1; $6.50 kids and adults; $5.50 ages 62 and older. Free admission for active-duty military and up to five dependents. Museums for All (EBT card required) pays $2 each for up to four family members.<br /> <strong>Reservations:</strong> Because of the coronavirus, reservations are strongly recommended at 561-742-6780 or <a href="http://www.schoolhousemuseum.org">www.schoolhousemuseum.org</a>. Masks are recommended.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Chess catching on in Delray</span><br /> Chess guru and all-around nice guy Willie “James” McCray, the founder of James Chess Club, joined forces with the Delray Beach Police Department for a Cops and Kids tournament at the Delray Beach Community Center on Nov. 6. <br /> “We had 21 tables and they were all full with players,” McCray said. “Participation was overwhelming.” <br /> Next up is Chess on the Beach from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 29 at the Pavilion on Atlantic Avenue at A1A. “It’s a beautiful location, and we’re expecting a full house,” McCray said.<br /> Everyone is welcomed, whether you love chess or just want to learn the game. <br /> James Chess Club meets from 5 to 6 p.m. Thursdays and noon-2 p.m. Saturdays at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, 170 NW Fifth Ave., Delray Beach. Call or text McCray for more information at 561-352-7145.</p>
<p><br /> </p></div>Tots & Teens: Delray chess club gives children lessons on game, lifehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/tots-teens-delray-chess-club-gives-children-lessons-on-game-life2021-09-28T14:06:56.000Z2021-09-28T14:06:56.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Janis Fontaine</strong><br /> <br />When you encourage a child, Willie “James” McCray of Delray Beach believes, it’s like the ripples a pebble sends across a pond — they touch things you didn’t expect.<br /> McCray has been sharing his love and his talent for the game of chess with kids in the West Settlers District, a historically Black area of Delray Beach, for more than two years. James Chess Club meets weekly at Delray’s Spady Museum, where McCray teaches kids to play the complicated strategy game. <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9620324052,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9620324052,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="118" alt="9620324052?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>McCray, 71, also holds chess tournaments with cash prizes every couple of months. The last tournament took place Sept. 3 in Libby Wesley Park. The next one will take place Nov. 28, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, possibly at Old School Square. Stay tuned, McCray says.<br /> Chess presents many important principles, one of which is “You have to learn to lose to win,” McCray explains. <br /> “It’s a brain game, a thinking game,” he says. “It’s about the choices you make and that you can’t blame anyone else. It also teaches life skills like patience, and it encourages the kids to think on their own.” <br /> As kids practice and compete, they hear words like “options, obstacles and opportunities” and “choice, consequences and responsibility.” These are the lessons of chess, McCray says. <br /> He learned them the hard way, on the streets, before he discovered the board game in his 20s. He hopes that learning chess will help kids avoid the pitfalls he had to overcome.<br /> Each chess piece has its own strengths and weaknesses, just like people. “I like the knight,” McCray says. “You can always go back where you came from.” <br /> But the pawn is perhaps the most inspiring piece to him. <br /> “In life’s struggles, you don’t have to be the king to be something. Look at the pawn.” <br /> The pawn, if it makes it all the way across the board, can become any piece it wants. “And you get eight chances!” McCray laughs. <br /> The message: “You can be as successful as you want to be, but it takes sacrifice.”<br /> Teaching chess to kids — one-on-one instruction can cost as much as $140 an hour with a player of McCray’s caliber — “is a gift that I can give,” he says. <br /> James Chess Club meets from 5 to 6 p.m. Thursday and noon to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, 170 NW Fifth Ave. There is no cost. Call or text McCray for more information at 561-352-7145.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Fuller Center taking applications for mentors</span><br /> Mentors are needed at the Fuller Center, a not-for-profit, education-focused organization based in Boca Raton. <br /> The center is looking for mentors to help teenagers and children. Mentors focus on developing positive relationships and assisting with homework. They work after school for at least one hour weekly at one of the two Fuller Center locations in Boca Raton. <br /> Applications from adults and teens 16 and older are being accepted. Mentors must pass background screening and commit to mentoring a minimum of once a week for one year. Training is provided.<br /> Ellyn Okrent, CEO of the Fuller Center, said in an email, “We believe it’s critical that we come together to help one another, particularly as our students begin a new school year, after going through such a challenging time.”<br /> The center will also launch the Promise Program in October with 16 participants ages 16-22 who need access to a positive, caring relationship with a non-parental adult mentor or coach. The participants will also learn leadership skills and get work experience.<br /> If you can’t volunteer, you can “Adopt a Class” with a $1,500 contribution that will fund a classroom for the entire school year. <br /> The East Campus is at 200 NE 14th St. The West Campus is at 10130 185th St. South. <br />For more information, contact Olga Bearhope at obearhope@ffcdc.org or at 561-391-7274, ext. 136.</p></div>Delray Beach: School opened doors to progresshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-school-opened-doors-to-progress2021-04-28T18:09:55.000Z2021-04-28T18:09:55.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862964075,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862964075,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862964075?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="635" /></a>C. Spencer Pompey, a teacher and coach, and Frank T. Hearst carry the Carver Eagles mascot in front of the school. </em><strong>Photos provided by Spady Cultural Heritage Museum</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>New plans for Carver won’t dim grads’ memories</strong></span></p>
<p><strong>By Larry Keller</strong></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862986087,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862986087,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862986087?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="100" /></a>It’s been more than a half century since the final bell sounded at Carver High School. Chain-link fencing encircles the beige and boxy two-story buildings now, but to former students, the dowdy appearance belies the profound impact the school had on their lives and their community.<br /> Before Palm Beach County schools integrated, Carver was the only place where Black students from Delray Beach and beyond — most from low-income households — could attend high school. It offered the prospect of a better future, but it was much more than a school.<br /> “It was the only place for us as a people to gather,” says Paula Rocker, Class of 1966. “That was the center, not just for education, but for all the things that impacted the Black community,” such as neighborhood meetings and talent shows.</p>
<p>As buildings on the campus deteriorated, the county School District announced plans to raze them a few years ago. Preservationists succeeded in getting the district to spare the administration building and cafetorium, and it also plans to refurbish the gymnasium.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862963471,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862963471,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862963471?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="494" /></a>Students take a typing class.</em></p>
<p><br /> At the same time, the district plans to build a complex to provide a medical and technical career-oriented curriculum. It will be called Village Center, with a new 20,000-square-foot building and modular classrooms. Plans call for the gymnasium to be reconfigured as a multipurpose arts facility capable of seating 500 people.<br /> Work is scheduled to begin this summer and be substantially done by next year.<br /> Carver is considered historic for the age of its buildings, the architect who designed them and the luminaries in the Black community associated with the school. But its cultural impact during segregation is particularly significant.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862963274,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862963274,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862963274?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a>Students gather in the library at Carver High School in Delray Beach in the 1950s.</em></p>
<p><br /> Teachers were pivotal, not only in school but alongside parents in instilling life lessons. It was like having an additional parent — because teachers lived in the same segregated neighborhoods as their students.<br /> “The teachers treated us as though we were their children,” Lorenzo Brooks, a 1960 graduate, said in a documentary, Old School, produced by the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach more than a decade ago.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862994486,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862994486,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862994486?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="103" /></a>“The teachers were the same people that sat next to you in church, and that you saw when you went to the supermarket,” Rocker says. “When your teacher reported to your parent that you were misbehaving, woe be unto you. The values that many of us have today were instilled by our parents and our teachers at Carver.”<br /> That oversight extended even further, says Ernestine Holliday, a 1959 graduate who spent her career as a home health aide.<br /> “Everybody was your parents. Your parents would go off to work at 6 o’clock in the morning … but there were other eyes” watching children, she says.<br /> And when kids went to school, they had better be dressed and groomed smartly. “If you went to school and you needed your hair combed or deodorant, that was addressed, but it was addressed in a loving manner,” says Rocker, a retired AT&T call center manager and adult education teacher.<br /> Granvill Dorsett, president of the 1966 class, agrees. “We knew there was a stigma being African-Americans. We had to change the narrative. We made sure we were well-dressed, well-spoken and well-behaved.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862966694,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862966694,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862966694?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="550" /></a>Small children ride a float sponsored by a nursery. Some teachers worked on farms to supplement their incomes.</em></p>
<p><br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862993876,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862993876,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862993876?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="102" /></a>Some students were bused to school from outlying farms miles away. “Most of them studied hard because they didn’t want to make that a lifetime of having to work on the farm,” Holliday says. “There were some kids that didn’t start school until they were 7 or 8 years old. They were behind, but they didn’t want to remain behind.”<br /> Her own father was a migrant contractor during the summers when school was out. He’d take families to farms as distant as North Carolina and upstate New York, where they would harvest crops and be provided housing. Holliday would return to Carver High as late as October or November, she says.</p>
<p><strong>History dates to 1896</strong><br /> Carver’s roots date back more than a century. In 1896, Colored School No. 4, on what is now Northwest Fifth Avenue, opened to serve Black children. It later was renamed the Delray County Training School.<br /> Solomon D. Spady, a onetime student of agricultural scientist and inventor George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute, became a teacher and the principal at the school, grades 1-8, in 1921 at Carver’s urging. <br /> In 1937, the school moved to Northwest Eighth Avenue. It was renamed George Washington Carver High School, with grades 1-12.</p>
<p>Spady — a revered civic leader — was still principal, and he also taught wood shop and agriculture courses. Some of his students cultivated crops on 10 acres that were sold to the public. These school grounds are now the site of S.D. Spady Elementary School.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8863001892,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8863001892,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8863001892?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="440" /></a><br /> Carver moved again to Southwest 12th Avenue and Southwest Fourth Street in 1958, and became a grades 9-12 school. When Palm Beach County desegregated schools, Carver merged with Seacrest High in 1970 to become Atlantic Community High School.</p>
<p>The Delray Full Service Center is now in a portion of the old Carver campus. It provides adult education instruction and will continue doing so at the new Village Center.<br /> The renowned architect of Carver was Gustav Maass Jr. He designed houses throughout the town of Palm Beach, commercial buildings on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach and railroad stations in Florida, including the historic Delray Beach Seaboard Air Line Railway Station in 1927.<br /> Much of Maass’ original design at Carver is gone now, and preservationists hope to obtain money to restore it. Ideas for use range from a trade school, to an adult education center to a culinary school.<br /> But first they need the School District to relinquish ownership of the administration building and cafetorium it wants to renovate. No action from the district is expected, however, until June 2022.<br /> And they want the Delray Beach City Commission to add the structures to the city’s register of historic places, making them eligible for grant money and ensuring their long-term protection.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862964492,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862964492,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862964492?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="441" /></a>C. Spencer Pompey (right) coached the Carver girls basketball team in 1953. The school’s sports teams excelled.</em></p>
<p><br /> At Carver’s final location, the tenure of another towering figure in the school’s history began. C. Spencer Pompey was a coach, a teacher and a civil rights activist. He protested Delray Beach’s whites-only beach in the 1950s and was involved in the filing of a successful class action a decade earlier to eliminate disparities between white and Black teachers’ salaries. The plaintiffs’ lawyer was a young Thurgood Marshall from the NAACP. He later became the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.<br /> Lois Martin knew firsthand about teachers’ poor pay. After graduating from Carver in 1946, she went to college, then began teaching at her old school in 1950. She supplemented her $2,000 annual salary by picking beans at a Boca Raton farm during the Christmas holidays, she said in the Old School documentary.</p>
<p><strong>Cherished memories</strong><br /> Carver students and the entire community were proud of the school’s extracurricular activities and events, especially the football and other athletic teams, and the marching bands. Carver’s football prowess was such that the school won several state titles in the 1960s. Even white folks ventured over to watch the Eagles play.<br /> Football “was one of the things that kind of kept us together,” Dorsett says of the students.<br /> So did the promise of decent jobs if they finished school. Students were told that with a proper education they could return home to become teachers themselves, Rocker says. And the school’s industrial arts courses also provided an incentive to graduate.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862964680,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862964680,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8862964680?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="666" /></a>Carver High students take part in a graduation ceremony.</em></p>
<p><br /> “You left there with a trade — cosmetology, carpentry, masonry, agriculture,” Rocker says.<br /> Only nine of 127 seniors in his Class of 1966 didn’t graduate, says Dorsett, a Vietnam veteran and National Guardsman who is a retired utility mechanic for the city of Delray Beach. “The families stressed education … because they knew it was about economics” — financial betterment, he says.<br /> “It was important because our parents were born back in the early 1900s,” Holliday says. “They weren’t allowed to get an education because most of their parents were sharecroppers and they had to work. For them, their children getting an education was important because they weren’t allowed to get one.” <br /> Holliday is unconcerned about saving any of her alma mater’s buildings. But, she adds, “I wouldn’t trade Carver for anything.”<br /> To others, like Dorsett and Rocker, those buildings are a vital and visible link to a cherished past.<br /> “The love that I feel when I talk about Carver High School, it’s almost like the love I have for my son,” Rocker says. “That’s where the caring, not only for me, but for all of the students there began.”</p>
<p> </p></div>Philanthrophy Notes: Students get backpacks, supplies via Delray Housing Authorityhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/philanthrophy-notes-students-get-backpacks-supplies-via-delray-ho2021-02-02T20:57:23.000Z2021-02-02T20:57:23.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8507578454,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8507578454,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8507578454?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>Shirley Erazo, president/CEO of the housing authority, and Rose Clay, housing specialist, show donated backpacks with GoSection8.com representatives (l-r in back) Elizabeth Wrenn, Jennifer McMahon and Michael Lazdowsky. <strong>Photo provided</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>By Amy Woods</strong></p>
<p>An annual initiative called Book Bag Bash recently took place to benefit children from low- and moderate-income families living within the Delray Beach Housing Authority’s jurisdiction.</p>
<p>The initiative, in partnership with GoSection8.com President Richard Cupelli, provided more than 600 backpacks filled with school supplies, hand sanitizer, face masks and snacks to local students.</p>
<p>“By providing our children brand new backpacks filled with grade-appropriate school supplies, we can ensure that our children will have some sense of normality during this pandemic,” said Shirley Erazo, president and CEO of the authority.</p>
<p>“Whether in person or virtually, they will have the supplies needed to start the new school year on the same level as their peers and excited to learn.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-272-6766 or visit <a href="http://www.dbha.org">www.dbha.org</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Quantum gives $2.7 million to provide food, health care</strong> </p>
<p>Hit with an especially large demand because of COVID-19, an organization whose mission is to fund initiatives that improve the health of Palm Beach County residents approved 17 grants totaling $2.7 million.</p>
<p>Quantum Foundation’s board of trustees OK’d the allocations, which include $1.25 million to Feeding South Florida.</p>
<p>“This grant means everything to our organization,” said Paco Vélez, president and CEO of Feeding South Florida. “It is critical to have such an investment from an organization like Quantum Foundation. Both of our missions align as we look to break the cycle of hunger and poverty, and the first step is providing access to the programs that we can provide thanks to this grant.”</p>
<p>The pandemic has been catastrophic for families, Vélez said, noting that since March 2020, his organization has doubled its output of food — to 120 million pounds compared with 62 million pounds — in one year.</p>
<p>“A little boy came through our drive-thru distribution recently and asked if we knew of any jobs for his family so they will not turn off the lights,” Vélez said. “The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for better long-term solutions for families.”</p>
<p>Other grants include $300,000 to Genesis Community Health, $250,000 to the Community Health Center of West Palm Beach and $200,000 to CROS Ministries.</p>
<p>“Your zip code is more of a marker to health than your genetic code,” foundation President Eric Kelly said. “Health equity is our way forward, and these vulnerable communities need their basic needs met now more than ever.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-832-7497 or visit <a href="http://www.quantumfnd.org">www.quantumfnd.org</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Adopt-A-Family earns award, $200,000 grant</strong> </p>
<p>Bank of America has named a local nonprofit as a 2020 Neighborhood Builders recipient for its work in preventing homelessness.</p>
<p>Adopt-A-Family of the Palm Beaches — one of two charities selected in Palm Beach County among 142 across the country — also was awarded a $200,000 grant and one year of leadership training.</p>
<p>“It is a tremendous honor for Adopt-A-Family to be recognized as a 2020 Bank of America Neighborhood Builders awardee,” CEO Matthew Constantine said. “This award will allow us to continue our efforts in providing one of the most fundamental and basic needs — stable housing.”</p>
<p>Added Fabiola Brumley, Bank of America’s Palm Beach County market president, “Nonprofits are the backbone of our community, and now more than ever they need our support to ensure that those they serve have the tools and resources to meet their evolving needs.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-253-1361 or visit <a href="http://www.adoptafamilypbc.org">www.adoptafamilypbc.org</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Malvern Foundation awards grants to local nonprofits</strong></p>
<p>The charitable arm of Malvern Bank has awarded 16 grants, totaling $100,000, to charitable groups in its local markets. Among the recipients are two Palm Beach County-based organizations: Quantum House and Vita Nova.</p>
<p>“These organizations provide vital services each year to hundreds of people in Palm Beach County,” said Anthony Weagley, president of Malvern Federal Charitable Foundation.</p>
<p>“Our grants are intended to assist these organizations in fulfilling their missions of helping our neighbors.”</p>
<p>For information about Quantum House, call 561-494-0515 or visit <a href="https://quantumhouse.org">https://quantumhouse.org</a>. For information about Vita Nova, call 561-689-0035 or visit <a href="http://www.vitanovainc.org">www.vitanovainc.org</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Trio appointed to board of Mounts’ Friends group </strong></p>
<p>William Bittner, Mary-Therese Delate and Karen Marcus have joined the Friends of Mounts Botanical Garden as board members supporting Palm Beach County’s oldest and largest public garden.</p>
<p>Paton White, incoming president of the Friends, announced the new positions, noting that Bittner is an insurance broker, Delate is a 30-plus-year Gold Coast resident, and Marcus is a former county commissioner.</p>
<p>“All three of these extraordinary, talented, insightful community-service professionals will be invaluable assets for Mounts Botanical Garden as we continue to grow and attract new visitors,” White said.</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-233-1757 or visit <a href="http://www.mounts.org">www.mounts.org</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Three named to board governing Spady Museum</strong></p>
<p>Kim Ardila-Morgan, Elizabeth Burrows and Christopher Redding have joined the board of Expanding and Preserving Our Cultural Heritage, which governs operations at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum.</p>
<p>Ardila-Morgan is a retired director of the Center for Applied Ethics at Palm Beach State College. Burrows has spent most of her career working in Delray Beach’s public and nonprofit sectors. Redding owns and operates a small business called Let’s Talk Innovation, which offers resources and funding to small businesses.</p>
<p>“Each of our new members brings a wealth of experience from different sectors to our board,” President Bill Whigham said. “We have a cross-section of skill sets from education, government, nonprofit and small business represented by Kim, Elizabeth and Christopher, which I believe will benefit museum operations in meaningful ways.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-279-8883 or visit <a href="http://www.spadymuseum.com">www.spadymuseum.com</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Lighthouse for the Blind announces fresh start</strong></p>
<p>The nonprofit that has served blind and visually impaired people in South Florida since 1946 is separating from Gulfstream Goodwill Industries and transitioning to a new location.<br /> Plans include moving to offices adjacent to the JFK Medical Center North Campus in West Palm Beach.</p>
<p>“We are appreciative of the support and guidance GGI provided over the years, However, it’s time that the organization does as we encourage each of our clients to do, and that’s to develop our capabilities to the fullest and return to being a fully independent organization once again,” said Donté Mickens, board chairman of Lighthouse for the Blind of the Palm Beaches.</p>
<p>Mary Allen, longtime director of vision services, will remain at the helm of the organization as interim executive director. </p>
<p>Meantime, it is unveiling a fresh corporate logo and tagline focused on its 75th anniversary. The marquee event of the celebration is the Eye Ball on April 15.</p>
<p>“These changes are an exciting new chapter in our 75-year legacy,” Mickens said. “These changes, however, will not deter from our mission, as Lighthouse will always remain focused on providing essential services for those with visual impairments.”</p>
<p>For more information, call 561-586-5600 or visit <a href="http://www.lhpb.org">www.lhpb.org</a>.</p></div>Delray Beach: Oral history project fundedhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-oral-history-project-funded2014-12-03T17:21:17.000Z2014-12-03T17:21:17.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960536678,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960536678,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="328" alt="7960536678?profile=original" /></a><em>In 1962 the Interracial Committee was formed to seek harmony</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>amid the unresolved resistance to integration of the beach.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960536287,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960536287,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="214" alt="7960536287?profile=original" /></a></em><em>Delray Beach Police Chief R.C. Croft displays items</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>confiscated under an ordinance that allowed police to search vehicles.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Photos courtesy of the Delray Beach Historical Society</strong></p>
<p></p>
<p> Visitors to the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum at 170 NW Fifth Ave. in Delray Beach are greeted by an African proverb: “Until the lions have their historians, the tales of the hunt will continue to glorify the hunter.”<br /> Recently, the museum received a $5,000 matching grant from the Florida Humanities Council to document the history of racial struggle that ended with the integration of the city beach.<br /> “Slavery had been abolished before South Florida was developed. We didn’t have the same territorial issues as the rest of the South,” says Charlene Jones, the museum’s director, “so our issue became the beach.”<br /> Working with Florida Atlantic University’s department of history, the museum will spend the next six months compiling oral histories for Beach at Delray: Untold Stories, a booklet county educators can use to teach the story of James McBride, C. Spencer Pompey, Catherine Strong and other prominent figures in the integration fight.<br /> “And then, if we’re funded again, we’d like to create a traveling exhibit around the subject,” Jones adds. “But even if we’re not funded, we’re going to create a lesson plan for Palm Beach County schools.<br /> “We’re inviting anyone who remembers this time in our city’s history — white or black — to come in and record their memories so we can pull together the names, dates and locations.”<br /> For more information, call the museum at (561) 279-8883.<br /><br /><em>— Ron Hayes</em><br /><br /></p></div>‘The Legacies of Delray Beach Families’: Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, Delray Beach – May 17https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/the-legacies-of-delray-beach-families-spady-cultural-heritage-mus2013-07-03T18:24:14.000Z2013-07-03T18:24:14.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960455078,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960455078,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="573" class="align-center" alt="7960455078?profile=original" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>The opening of this exhibition of photographs of the Edmonds, Mitchell, Quine and Spells families</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>served as a reunion of sorts. </em><b>ABOVE: </b>Susan and Mark Reingold.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><em><b>Photos provided by Corby Kaye’s Studio</b></em></em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><b>BELOW:</b> Michiko Kurisu pictured with her mother, Judy Kurisu,</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>curated the exhibit that illustrated each family’s contributions to the community. </em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960455093,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960455093,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="274" class="align-center" alt="7960455093?profile=original" /></a></em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p></p></div>Juneteenth: Crane’s Beach House, Delray Beachhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/juneteenth-crane-s-beach-house-delray-beach2012-08-01T18:56:25.000Z2012-08-01T18:56:25.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960395096,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960395096,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="576" alt="7960395096?profile=original" /></a><em>Mark and Susan Reingold were among the more than 100 supporters of the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum who attended the event that raised more than $6,100 to support the museum.</em><br /><strong><em>Photo provided</em></strong></p></div>Delray Beach: Fort Mose slavery exhibit back to Spady Museumhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-fort-mose-slavery-exhibit-back-to-spady-museum2012-05-30T16:17:27.000Z2012-05-30T16:17:27.000ZDeborah Hartz-Seeleyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/DeborahHartzSeeley<div><p><span><b><br /></b></span></p>
<p><span><b><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960394297,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960394297,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="257" class="align-center" alt="7960394297?profile=original" /></a></b></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span><b>A woman from Fort Mose near St. Augustine.</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span><b><br /></b></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><span><b>By Greg Stepanich</b></span></p>
<p>An exhibit returning to Delray Beach’s Spady Cultural Heritage Museum after a three-year absence will help visitors understand that slavery in North America was more complex than popular memory might have it. </p>
<p>The exhibit, which opened in May and remains there through July 29, is focused on Fort Mose (pronounced Mo-SAY), a redoubt north of St. Augustine that in the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century was home to the first community of free black men in what was to become the United States.</p>
<p>Interim museum director Charlene Jones says Fort Mose’s legacy is with us today.</p>
<p>“It ties directly to South Florida because many of the people from the Georgia, Carolina, Panhandle of Florida area migrated down to what we now call South Florida, particularly Delray Beach, during this time by way of Fort Mose,” Jones said.</p>
<p>Not that there were any major settlements in this part of Florida back then. But it served as a hiding place until the abolishment of slavery with the 13<sup>th</sup> Amendment in 1865.</p>
<p>Florida was a Spanish colony from Ponce de Leon’s arrival in 1513, and in the 1680s, Spanish King Charles II offered asylum to slaves who would agree to serve the Spanish against the English, and convert to Catholicism. Fort Mose was built in 1738 as a defense outpost to protect St. Augustine. It was attacked not long afterward, and rebuilt. Spain ceded it to Britain in 1763, and the colony departed for Cuba. </p>
<p>The 500-square-foot exhibit features informational panels and cutout representations of some of the people important to the story, and a case containing replicas of some of the items found at the site when it was excavated in 1986, such as musket balls and belt buckles.</p>
<p>“These things helped the historians piece together all kinds of information about the fort, including the types of uniforms that they wore to the types of food that they ate,” Jones said. </p>
<p>Most importantly, the Fort Mose story helps show visitors that the face of slavery was not the same in every part of the country, Jones said. </p>
<p>“The biggest thing it does is it highlights the different perspectives of the different nations who were enslaving people,” she said, adding that the Spanish approach allowed them to consider the slaves they protected as servants and freemen at the same time. </p>
<p>“They viewed people who were enslaved as people, whereas many others viewed people who were enslaved as property,” Jones said.</p>
<p>The Fort Mose exhibit comes from the Florida Museum of Natural History and is sponsored by the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency. </p>
<p>The museum is at 170 NW Fifth St., and is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on Saturday by appointment. Admission is $5. Call 279-8883 or visit <a href="http://www.spadymuseum.org">www.spadymuseum.org</a>. <span>Ú</span></p></div>