The Overtown Community

Extends between Fourth and Tenth Streets from U.S. 41 to Orange Avenue.

Though many buildings in this historically African American community have been lost, others have been rehabilitated and adapted to commercial use. Payne AME Chapel is a symbol of ...

The Johnson Chapel Missionary Baptist Church

The only remaining rural church in southern Sarasota County dating from the 1910s, Johnson Chapel was built as the Osprey Missionary Baptist Church in 1915 on the west side of the Tamiami Trail in Osprey, six miles north of Laurel, ...

Williams Academy Black History Museum

The first Williams Academy, built in 1913, was a two-story building located between Anderson Avenue and Lemon Street. It was the site of the first government-funded, black school in Fort Myers. When the second floor was destroyed by a fire, ...

Paul Laurence Dunbar School

Completed in 1927, the Dunbar School served as the colored high school for the predominately black Dunbar community and surrounding area. Prior to September 1925, educational opportunities for African Americans were limited to grades one through six. The masonry vernacular ...

Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church

One of the oldest churches in the Dunbar community, Mount Olive's congregation dates to 1895. Church services were held for many years at several locations, including the Lee County Courthouse, where the congregation was originally organized. The church was built ...

McCollum Hall

Constructed in 1938 by Clifford McCollum, Sr., McCollum Hall was a commercial center in the Dunbar Community. The second story held a large dance hall with a raised stage for live performances by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and others. During ...

Centennial Park

The Civil War's 2nd Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops monument is dedicated to the black Union soldiers who defended a federal post in Fort Myers against the Confederates in 1865. A single black soldier standing before a wall with a ...

Rosemary Cemetery

Restored marble headstones and a historical marker at the intersection of Pine Ridge Road and the Tamiami Trail identify Rosemary Cemetery, Naples' primary burial ground until 1947. The cemetery was platted in 1934 to re-inter the remains of the first ...

Macedonia Baptist Church

The oldest African American church in Naples, this church was organized in 1929, and relocated to its present site in 1952. The new, Gothic-style church building was dedicated in 1954, the annex was built in 1973, and the church was ...

St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church

St. Mark was founded in the late 1880s by Punta Gorda's African American pioneer, area businessman and civic leader, Dan Smith. Smith named the church and was ordained as the first deacon. Dan Smith's wife Louisa Evans was a Baptist, ...