Newtown is largest Black historic district in state thanks to coalition effort

When Vickie Oldham began documenting the history of Newtown in 2015, the president and CEO of the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition found little information readily available about the city's Black community, which dates to 1914.

But Oldham said since then, the work has seen a massive outgrowth. 

For instance, it captured the attention of Steven High, executive director of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. 

Now, in partnership with the museum, the SAACC plans to create a new space for making and exhibiting art, at a warehouse site the museum owns next to Truvine Church, which is located at 1947 31st St. 

A project which started with a seed of an idea, has made possible a new Sarasota cultural institution, Oldham said.

What began with Oldham being contracted by the city of Sarasota to document Newtown's history has also led to its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in May of this year, and helped earn Sarasota the Stewards of Heritage award from the Florida Archaeological Council in July.

The district is now the largest Black historic district in Florida, based on the number of contributing resources, and joins St. Augustine as the only other city to receive the award in its 50 years of existence.

History to light 

The push for the city to recognize Black history with a National Historic District designation began with Fredd Atkins, Sarasota’s first Black mayor, who grew up in Newtown. 

At the time, Oldham was living in Georgia. 

City of Sarasota Senior Planner Clifford Smith played an instrumental role in the preservation efforts that began in roughly 2008.

“I think that much of this honor goes to Dr. Cliff Smith, who championed historic preservation of the African American community, and he was there to support me at each step of the way, and I think that honor absolutely goes to Newtown residents, too, who kept the drumbeat up in asking the city to recognize its history,” Oldham said.

Photo by Ian Swaby

After his first examination of Newtown, Smith had to report back to Atkins that the features were not currently in place to warrant a National Historic District designation, which resulted in a strategic plan to meet the federal requirements.

The first step was to work out the boundaries of Newtown, based on the multiple maps the city possessed. They ultimately settled in favor of Myrtle Street to the north, 19th Street to the south, the Seminole Gulf Railway tracks to the west and U.S. 301 to the east.

Oldham was then brought on board, and she chose to brand the preservation effort as “Newtown Alive.”

The first phase involved a research report based on primary and secondary source documents, oral history interviews and educational resources.

The efforts took place over the course of a year, with Oldham hiring Rosalyn Howard, an accomplished cultural anthropologist at the University of Central Florida. (Howard died in 2023.)

Newtown’s history had never been comprehensively documented at the time, Oldham said, which meant searching in libraries, history centers and often residents’ garages, in boxes where old pictures were stored.

She said everything she learned enlightened her about aspects of the town’s history, like the wade-ins that led to beach desegregation, the lawsuit to open single-member voting districts so that residents could have a Black representative, and the boycotts of segregated schools.

She learned that during the wade-ins, which began in 1951 and fully integrated beaches by 1964, residents of Newtown faced considerable opposition to their efforts of resistance. 

Beachgoers placed nails beneath the car tires of activists so that they would not be able to get back home, and reported their license plate numbers, with many participants losing their jobs.

“There was a cost that activists paid in order to open these beaches for everyone, and it made me certainly, certainly appreciate their sacrifices and their courage and their determination, and the dignity at which they approached this whole issue, and I learned that Newtown residents under the NAACP leaders — they were not passive, far from it. They fought for every right that African Americans have in Sarasota. And that gave me such a pride. It really just boosted my pride when I learned this history in its fullness."

The research report laid the foundation for the second phase, which involved placing a trail of 15 historical markers, and a mobile app. 

Newtown leveraged the project, Oldham said, by introducing a book, "Newtown Alive," published in 2017, as well as trolley tours of the area.

Residents were also asked to apply for historic designation for their homes if they were over 50 years old to make them classifiable as contributing historical resources.

Photo by Ian Swaby

The style of the buildings, Smith said, is known as frame vernacular or masonry vernacular, and is a “small, inexpensive, utilitarian house” built without formal training.

The Newtown Historic District now includes 731 contributing resources, including Galilee Cemetery, New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church and other churches, and homes.

Restoration work had to be performed on buildings, and the city received a grant from the National Park Service for $50,000 for underrepresented communities, and a matching grant from the Newtown CRA, hiring the engineering consultant Terracon.

Oldham said along the way, it became clear to her and the people of Newtown that a new physical structure was needed where the history could be housed, and they took their request to the Sarasota City Commission in 2019.

They asked for a small seed grant for Phase 3 of the project, of $200,000

Their advocacy resulted in the Leonard Reid House, which was formerly part of Overtown, the original African American community that is now the site of the Rosemary District, being relocated to Newtown at the intersection of Orange Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

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In addition to showcasing Sarasota's history, the historic district designation exempts buildings from certain codes and regulations. It allows for certain state grants for renovations, including up to $1 million in matching grants from the state for commercial structures such as churches. 

“Some people from other communities are coming to me and asking, ‘How did you get started? What did you do?'" Oldham said. "And I can share the story, because I believe that we have a wonderful template for other communities to get started with historic preservation, that will eventually lead to heritage tourism."

This story has been updated to correct the description of the project of the SAACC and Ringling Museum.