Bolles upper school students taking Spanish 4 and Spanish 5 traveled with members of the Bolles Black Student Union on a trip to St. Augustine to explore Fort Mose State Park and the Best-Richardson Museum of the African Diaspora on February 23.
Upper school teacher Carrie Ezzell, who organized the trip, said this learning experience served as a kickoff to a unit of study in her upper-level Spanish classes in which her students will explore the history and cultural contributions of Afro-Latinos.
The group started the day at Fort Mose State Park, the first free black settlement in North America, recognized by the National Underground Railroad Network as the earliest stop – even pre-dating the establishment of the U.S. – and one of the few that ran from north to south.
Ezzell noted that the governor of Spanish Florida granted escaped slaves from the Carolinas and Georgia their freedom in exchange for converting to Catholicism and their commitment to the defense of the city of Saint Augustine. At the park, students were given the site’s history by a guest speaker from the Fort Mose Historical Society, and they collaborated in groups to complete a digital scavenger hunt.
After lunch, the students visited the Best-Richardson Museum of the African Diaspora, where they were introduced to the founder, Gigi Best. She described her own journey with African-American history, culture and literature as well as her exploration of her ancestry.
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