Orange County (Fla.) district sued over planned sale of land that housed historic school
A group seeking to preserve one of the first historically Black towns in the United States is suing the Orange County (Fla.) school board to stop the sale of a former school site that is tied up with Florida's legacy of racial segregation decades ago.
The Associated Press reports that the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community sued the school board in an effort to stop the sale of the 100-acre property in Eatonville where the Robert Hungerford Preparatory High School once operated. The school closed in 2010.
The association contends that the proposed $14.6 million sale of the school property threatens the cultural heritage of the town. The developer seeking to buy the land plans to build 350 new homes along with business spaces.
With a population of around 2,350 people, of whom almost three-quarters are Black, the town outside Orlando is perhaps best known through the writings of writer Zora Neale Hurston. Eatonville was the setting for one of her best known works, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
The association, along with other Eatonville residents, fear the sale of the property will increase traffic and price out longtime residents of the town, many whose families have lived there for generations.
"If this sale is allowed to proceed, the rich culture and heritage of the town that Zora Neale Hurston popularized around the world as ‘the first incorporated African American community in the United States’ will be erased,” said N.Y. Nathiri, executive director of the association, which is being represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Founded in 1887, Eatonville was among the early all-Black incorporated municipalities established in the decades after the end of slavery. Around 1,200 Black towns or settlements were established in the late 19th century and early 20th century, according to the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance.
The Hungerford school was established in 1897 for Black children facing an educational system that segregated them from white students. The Orange County School Board purchased the property from a trust in 1951 under a deed restriction that the school would continue to be used to educate Black children.
The school board was able to sell a portion of the property in 1974 after a circuit court lifted the deed restriction for that section of land.
In the 2010s, the town of Eatonville, in cooperation with the school board, tried to have the deed restriction removed by suing the trust for a release so that the remaining land could be sold for commercial purposes. The parties reached several different settlements over the decade, but the association's lawsuit argues that those settlements are void since they either weren't court approved or didn't have the participation of all the required parties.
