When Janice Ayer Jackson heard news organizations were putting on an event to document the history of the African-American community in her hometown of St. Petersburg, she collected a couple keepsakes and made the eight-hour drive from Atlanta.
Jackson was one of more than a hundred attendees at the black history preservation drive held at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum on November 9. The drive was an effort to collect oral histories and archival materials from people whose community has historically been neglected.
Jackson, who called St. Petersburg home from 1949 to 1980, participated in a mock wedding at age four, and among the mementos she brought was the pint-sized wedding dress she wore nearly 70 years ago.
“She took it out after all these years and it was still in amazing condition,” said Rebecca Colone, a senior mass communication major and member of USF St. Petersburg’s Neighborhood News Bureau (NNB), which helped coordinate the event. “She had the dress, the veil, the skirt, everything. She was so proud.”
Colone was joined by journalists, students and volunteers from the NNB, the Tampa Bay Times, the Weekly Challenger and the African American Heritage Association, who were on site at the Woodson Museum to help current and former residents share their stories about life in St. Petersburg from the 1930s to the late 1990s.
Material collected during the drive will later be used to inform Tourist Town, a project that aims to retell the history of the black community in St. Petersburg.
“African-American communities have often been ignored and media coverage has been biased against them,” said Dr. Bernardo Motta, Professor of Journalism and Director of the NNB. “We wanted to hold a drive to find out what historical materials people have in their homes, in order to tell a better and more complete history and journalism stories about what happened in the past.”
Attendees brought to the drive hundreds of documents, photos and vibrant memories of 20th century St. Petersburg. Four stations were set up to collect video and audio recordings of oral histories from long-time residents. A separate station was available for participants to take portraits with their friends and families. During the drive, staff collected some 20 video interviews.
The idea for the preservation drive started with a conversation between Tampa Bay Times photojournalists John Pendygraft and Martha Asencio Rhine, a graduate of USF St. Petersburg’s journalism program and past NNB participant. While conducting a historical investigation, Pendygraft found City Hall records that described the city’s desire to change into a “tourist town,” which meant relocating some members of the African-American community in order to redevelop areas in midtown and downtown St. Petersburg. Rhine told Pendygraft about the NNB’s shared interest in retelling the history of the city’s black community. Thus, the partnership was born.
Colone said her experience at the preservation drive helped her better appreciate the important stories of St. Petersburg’s diverse residents.
“I often get caught up thinking about the future, so it was nice to be able to focus on other people’s history and really learn from them, because they have so much to offer,” said Colone.
When discussing their stories, Colone said it was important to handle the conversations with sensitivity, as times were often tough for African Americans during this era in St. Petersburg.
“As a journalism student, learning to navigate these sensitive situations while giving the subjects respect, is probably the biggest thing I learned,” she said. “I feel like those lessons can only be learned through the experience.”
The Neighborhood News Bureau is a working newsroom of students at USF St. Petersburg, which Motta helped found in 2017. Last year, the initiative launched the NNB Black History project to chronicle the storied past of St. Petersburg’s African American community.