Haley Brown
In celebration of Black History Month, officials with Fort Mose Historic State Park are announcing improvements to the Flight to Freedom trail.
Fort Mose is in St. Augustine. The park marks the site of the first free Black community in the U.S. and can date its roots back to 1687.
“This is nationally significant not just Florida significant,” said Julia Woodward, CEO of the Florida State Parks Foundation.
New, educational signs along the three-quarter-mile trail will have QR codes for visitors to scan, and videos of reenactors telling the story of what it was like for escaped slaves to make the difficult journey from the Carolinas to the free settlement.
“Most people think of the underground railroad as running north to Canada, but the underground railroad initially ran south to St. Augustine,” Woodward said.
The announcement of the groundbreaking on the trail improvements would have coincided with a yearly reenactment event along the trail each February to celebrate Black History Month. But the event was canceled this year because of COVID-19.
“We’re happy that visitors throughout the year now will be able to come out, once the panels are complete, and be able to experience this all year round,” Woodward said.
Woodward said the project will take less than 12 months to complete.
Fort Mose is a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO Slave Route Project and is on the National Register for Historic Places and the Florida African American History Trail.
The project is a partnership between Florida State Parks Foundation, Florida Park Service, Department of Environmental Protection, Fort Mose Historical Society, Florida Power & Light Company and The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.
