Turbulent Race Relations

Race relations in the period of Reconstruction that followed the Civil War were relatively peaceful, and the residents of Pensacola enjoyed a fairly egalitarian community. While there were pushes within the community to erect monuments to the Confederacy, no legal segregation in public places existed. Until 1905, infernos and epidemics concerned the people of Pensacola more than race relations. However, as time passed, oppression started to hit African Americans like Ezra Gerry hard. Racist legislation and outright murders of black men created turbulent times for Pensacola's black residents.

As these incidents became few and far between, Pensacola saw the implementation of Jim Crow laws in the first decade of the twentieth century. One of the most notable was the passage of legislation that segregated the streetcars in 1905. Known as the Avery Bill, this new law required the Pensacola streetcar system to provide travel accommodations for African-American passengers that were separate from the white passengers. One local African-American church, the Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church selected a delegation of its members to travel to the state capitol to protest the implementation of the bill, but their lobby was rejected. The law went into effect on June 1, 1905.

The Avery Bill sparked one of the earliest bus boycotts in American history; when the Florida Sentinel published a story about the public reaction to the boycott, the respondents, most of whom were white, stated that it was an ineffective and unimportant political statement. The responses suggested that the boycott made little difference to streetcar owners due to the infrequency of African Americans’ use of the public transportation.

Segregation slowly spread throughout Pensacola, changing the world in which Pensacola citizens lived from a free-moving one to an increasingly restricted one. Local businesses that previously allowed African-American patronage began to restrict their stores to white only. These limitations were put in place shortly after the rapid rebuild of downtown buildings destroyed by fire and the implementation of municipal codes to increase the effectiveness of the sanitation department. In order to make downtown Pensacola more appealing to upper-class shoppers, the city rebuilt, pushed for increased cleanliness, and eliminated African-American patronage.

The Ladies' Confederate Monument Association of Pensacola erected a monument in Lee’s Square dedicated to “Our Confederate Dead.” The monument includes a staircase leading up to the Confederate soldier bearing the name of each state that seceded from the United States during the Civil War. The monument honored the President of the Confederacy as well as Stephen R. Mallory, the Naval Secretary, and Edward Failsworth Perry, a general in the Confederate army. This monument has stood in Lee’s Square for nearly 130 years.

After Gerry’s death in 1907, segregation and racially motivated violence only grew in Pensacola. Just one year later, Leander Shaw would be lynched, shot, and mutilated in Plaza Ferdinand for having allegedly assaulted a white woman. In 1909, another black man, Dave Alexander, was coerced into confessing to the murder of a police officer. Alexander too suffered lynching at the hands of his fellow Pensacolians.

The status of Creoles in Pensacola changed during this time of racial hostility. Prior to the passing of the Avery Bill, the Creole population self-identified as being in some ways superior to the African-American population. They had separate churches and did not fully integrate themselves with the rest of Pensacola’s African Americans. However, as the new century came they found that their special status was gone and they faced the same legal and de facto discrimination as the rest of the African American community.

Segregation slowly spread throughout Pensacola changing the world in which Pensacola citizens lived from a free-moving one to an increasingly restricted one. Local businesses that previously allowed African American patronage began to restrict their stores to white only. This was done shortly following the rapid rebuilding of previously destroyed buildings downtown and the implementation of municipal codes to increase the effectiveness of the sanitation department. In order to make downtown Pensacola more appealing to upper-class shoppers the city rebuilt, increased the cleanliness, and eliminated African American patronage.

Growing up in the midst of these racially motivated changes would have made any young, African-American man painfully aware of the increasingly shaky ground he was on. Ezra Gerry’s life was shaken by the emergence of Jim Crow laws in his hometown and by the increase in crimes against other black men.

Confederate Monument:

The Confederate monument was erected in 1891 in Lee’s Square by the Ladies Confederate Monument Association of Pensacola. It was dedicated to “Our Confederate Dead” and includes a staircase leading up to the Confederate soldier which bears the name of each state that seceded from the United States during the Civil War. The monument’s inscription reads:

“The Uncrowned Heroes of the Southern Confederacy, whose joy was to suffer and die for a cause they believed to be just. Their unchallenged devotion and matchless heroism shall continue to be the wonder and inspiration of the ages.”

Palafox Street Image:

Palafox Street in downtown Pensacola following the fire of 1880 which began on the morning of December 11 and destroyed the vast majority of the business districts. Pensacola’s downtown district suffered a series of fires from 1880 until 1905.

Streetcar Segregation Bill:

The legislation passed to segregate the Pensacola streetcars, also known as The Avery Bill, was put into effect on July 1, 1905. The bill not only provided that African-American passengers should be separated from white, but also imposed fines and criminal charges upon conductors or other employees who facilitated the now-illegal integration of the streetcars.

Puritan Laundry Co. Advertisement:

The Puritan Laundry Co. placed an advertisement for the “first and only” laundry in Pensacola that caters exclusively to white patrons following the implementation of Jim Crow laws in northwest Florida. It was run in 1909, four years after the segregation of streetcars in Pensacola was enforced.

Florida Sentinel article:

The Florida Sentinel ran an article about the public reaction to the boycott of the streetcars following the implementation of the Avery Bill. The popular opinion was that the streetcars would not be negatively impacted by the boycotts because the African-American community did not patronize them enough to make an economic difference.