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We are pleased to announce the publication of Africa in Florida: Five Hundred Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State (University Press of Florida, 2014).  Poets, painters, art historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, historians, and specialists in comparative religion provide localized studies about the African diaspora in Florida.

On April 2, 1513, the first Africans arrive in Florida near contemporary Melbourne Beach. Juan Gárrido and Juan González [Ponce] de León were free, African men from Spain who accompanied Juan Ponce de León onto the shores of what would become La Florida. We choose to look at this historical moment not as a voyage of exploration signaling the beginning of European colonization of what would become the continental United States but rather as the beginning of Black presence in Florida and by extension America. In response to the 500^th anniversary (2013), this volume celebrates the ways in which Africans and people of African descent have shaped the history and visual culture of Florida. 

 

Africa in Florida: Five Hundred Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State

Edited by Amanda B. Carlson and Robin Poynor

University Press of Florida (02/04/2014)

Details: 528 pages; 7 x 10 inches
Cloth: $79.95   ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-4457-6