083. Bishop Albert Kee Statue
Historic Marker Number 83 is located at the Southernmost Point at the corner of Whitehead and South streets.This bronze statue, erected in March 2015, celebrates the life of Bishop Albert Kee, a preacher, businessman and Key West’s official ambassador of goodwill. Each day, Bishop Kee was seen at the Southernmost Point greeting the Conch Tour Train with a cheerful wave and toot on a conch shell. He educated visitors about the origins of conch and various uses for conch meat and explained how Key West’s natives came to be called ‘Conchs’.Bishop Kee, and his father before him, left a fifty-year legacy of welcoming all who visited the Southernmost Point and popularized conch blowing. More important, they were emissaries of the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community that has made Key West unique since its foundation.The two witnessed changes that came to Key West over time; changes that mirrored those occurring outside their tiny island, and that resonate to this day. Kee and his father lived in Key West when all the beaches in Florida were segregated and the sole water access area for most of Bahama Village was an area of land called the ‘Black Beach’ that was part of U.S. Army property originating from this Point and stretching to Fort Zachary Taylor.In 1948 the Army transferred most of this land to the U.S. Navy. The Navy built military housing and connected the stretch of land and beach to Truman Annex. In 1942, with the threat of World War II, the Navy erected a fence along Whitehead Street to separate their base housing from the town. This, in effect, reduced ‘Black Beach’ to a tiny patch of beach front that we now know as the Southernmost Point.From this small patch of land, Bahama Village fishermen anchored their boats, sold their catch along Whitehead Street and shared the waters with their children and families.Bishop Kee and his father, ‘Yankee’, were at the Point in 1969 when segregated beaches became illegal throughout Florida. Also, Bishop Kee witnessed the Southernmost Point evolve into a spot that thousands of tourists flock to for their photos. And he was there when the old wooden Southernmost billboard was replaced with the oversized buoy proclaiming it as the Southernmost Point in the continental United States. The buoy design originated from a large floating buoy that marked the entrance to the Black Beach.A number of years prior to this, U.S. President Harry Truman took a big step in support of equal rights when he ordered that the military become desegregated. His orders were interpreted to mean that desegregation applied only to military personnel. President Dwight D. Eisenhower took this a step further and desegregated the entire military.The historic Black Beach could not be returned to the community since a large portion of it was now a military base with Navy housing built along the adjacent shores. However, as a gesture to the community, the city built a large community pool and community center at the edge of Bahama Village. The pool was situated to look over the beaches that were once Black Beach and toward the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It had ground level space for community gatherings and was open to all.The pool is currently called the Martin Luther King Community Center and is located at 300 Catherine Street.
112. Martin Luther King Pool & Community Center
Historic Marker Number 112 is located at 300 Catherine Street at the corner of Catherine and Thomas streets.This is the only community pool open to the public in Key West. The pool was renamed in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the American Civil Rights Movement from 1954 until his death in 1968.The pool’s story is part of the nation’s and Key West’s story of segregation. During segregation, beaches in Florida were off limits to African Americans by law. The broad beach stretching from the Southernmost Point to Fort Zachary Taylor was owned by the U.S. Army. For decades it was known as ‘black beach’ used by the Black community in what is now known as Bahama Village.In 1942, the beach became part of the Naval Station Key West base and at roughly the same time the beach and naval station were fenced off from the public in an attempt to secure the base during World War II.Making the beach off limits to the public left the Black community with no beach access except the small spit of land that is now known as the Southernmost Point at the corner of United and Whitehead Streets. After the war, the Navy retained its ownership claim on the beach and adjacent land.In 1955, the City of Key West built this pool and community center at the edge of Bahama Village. It had ground level space for community gatherings and was open to all. The irony of the pool is that it is situated overlooking the beaches that were once called Black Beach and waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
113. St. Stevens AME Zion Church
Historic Marker Number 113 is located at 330 Julia Street on the corner of Whitehead and Julia streets.St. Stephen AME Zion Church is one of a handful of African Methodist Episcopal churches in Bahama Village. It is named for Saint Stephen who is recognized as the first Christian martyr. He was tasked by the Apostles to distribute food and care to the poor of the early church. His beliefs and speeches concerning what he saw as injustices of the church’s distribution of wealth to its poor and widowed parishioners led to his death and martyrdom. He was condemned by the church and stoned to death. He is the patron saint of the poor and most interestingly, masons.The church structure is built from locally quarried limestone and coral rock. Parishioners, carpenters and members of the Black Mason’s Lodge, began church construction in 1900. They added the steeple to the structure in 1920. The exposed open beam and plank roof structure is evident when viewed from the interior of the structure.Key West has been tested by the Great Fire of 1886, numerous hurricanes and the ravages of a subtropical climate. Stone construction has proved to have many advantages of withstanding these dangers throughout the island’s 200 year history.It is a testament to the parishioners of Saint Stevens AME Zion Church that this is a stone structure surrounded by 3,000 wooden buildings that make up the largest wood vernacular Historic District in the United States.Saint Stephens was closed as a place of worship in 1979. Since then it has gone through a series of uses ranging from office space to residential use and is currently an art gallery open to the public.
094. Bethel AME Church
Historic Marker Number 94 is located at 223 Truman Avenue on the corner of Thomas Street.This structure is a building of faith and fortitude. The Bethel AME Church has been a religious, social and political center of Key West’s Black community. It is one of a handful of American Methodist Episcopal churches serving Bahama Village.This is the second location for the church. The original church building was founded in 1887 in the 700 block of Duval Street. That original wooden structure was demolished during the devastating Hurricane of 1909. The building was replaced the following year in the same location and the spiritual life of the congregation resumed as normal.The Bethel AME Church suffered a second loss in 1922 when the building was destroyed during a questionable daytime fire, some believing it was arson at the hand of the Ku Klux Klan. Historians contend that the fire may have been set on purpose as part of a nefarious business deal to convert the land by a developer for a more profitable use.In 1923, the congregation’s reconstruction began at the present location on the corner of Thomas Street and Truman Avenue. This white masonry hall of worship has been the proud home of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church members ever since.
114. Frederic Douglass School
Historic Marker Number 114 is located at 111 Olivia Street on the corner of Olivia and Thomas streets.Frederic Douglass was a national American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement gaining notoriety for his oratory and incisive antislavery writing. During his life he was described by abolitionists as a living counter example to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.Like Key West, Black schools throughout the country were named in honor of Douglass. He was a symbol of excellence in Black communities that could be held high during the decades of Jim Crow segregation.The Frederic Douglass School in Key West has been in four locations. The first school was constructed in 1884 on land behind the Monroe County Courthouse and the County Jail - the exact location was at the corner of Southard and Thomas Streets.The second school location had to be removed from Truman Annex when the U.S. Navy annexed the land at the onset of World War II. The school was moved to Bahama Village as classroom size increased.Even with the weight of segregation during the Jim Crow era, the school was a defining structure of solidarity offering a high level of education for generations of Key West’s Black students. In 1965, segregation became the law of the land. Students were assigned to attend Key West High School on Flagler Avenue.The building you are looking at is the remains of the fourth Douglas High School. A few years after the student transfer, classrooms were demolished leaving a music room, some office space, and the gymnasium.Generations of Bahama Village children have spent their summer and after-school hours meeting and playing games in this building. It has also been a place where previous Douglass School teachers and community elders mentored the children and assisted them in the path to continued education.In 2018, the City of Key West finished a complete renovation of the gymnasium structure. Future uses of the adjoining office space and separate music room are being planned for use by the residents of Bahama Village.
093. Cornish Memorial AME Zion Church
Historic Marker Number 93 is located at 704 Whitehead between Angela and Petronia streets.This historic site is as much about a nineteenth century Free Black community leader as it is about the landmark Cornish Memorial AME Zion Church in Key West. The Black community member was Sandy Cornish who founded the Cornish Chapel for the Black residents of Key West. It is thought that its first meeting was held under a large Spanish Lime tree in the 200 block of Hutcherson Lane in 1864.Sandy Cornish was born into slavery in 1793. By the time he founded the chapel, he had purchased his freedom, relocated to Key West with his wife, acquired land, became a wealthy farmer and a leading spirit among the island’s Black community.The church's existence is a culmination of a number of conditions and events that existed in Key West during the Civil War. The 1860 census counted 2,832 people living on the island. What the census did not show was the diversity of the population. It was a port city of considerable importance – economically and militarily – a fact that led to extensive heterogeneity in its residents. It was a diverse population that comprised shipwreck survivors, Bahamian wreckers, immigrants, fishermen from New England and the Gulf states, businessmen, commercial adventurers, mechanics from the Northern States, and world wanderers from every corner of the globe.Blacks comprised slightly less than 20 percent of the 1860s Key West population. The low percentage should not deceive as to the influence of, or living environment enjoyed by, the Black community. Given the town's geographic isolation and general lack of available laborers, conditions tended to offer a great deal of flexibility to slaves and the town's 160 Free Blacks.The Civil War era and the increased presence of the Federal Government brought prosperity to Key West, permitting local Blacks to capitalize on government spending indirectly as well as directly. During the war, the U.S. government stationed regiments of the U.S Colored Infantry, along with the 2nd U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment, and some men from the 99th Regiment, part of the United States ‘Corps d' Afrique’. The gathering of Black soldiers, local slaves, and free Blacks, greatly increased Key West's desire for spiritual leadership.Prior to and during the Civil War, the American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ) in Hartford, Connecticut was striving to expand the geographic coverage of its ministries. In 1864, AMEZ leader Wilbur Garrison Strong was sent to Key West, the southernmost Union stronghold, to establish a church. Reverend Strong is recognized as the first ordained minister in Florida. Under the leadership of Reverend Strong, the Cornish Chapel congregation quickly outgrew the meetinghouse where they started. Plans for a grand centralized church building began in 1885.The church was constructed in the form of European cathedrals and was designed to serve as a place of worship, a schoolhouse and a gathering place of safety. With volunteer labor of the parishioners, stone was quarried from the site for the foundation and ground floor then craftsmen trained by ships’ carpenters mortised together great timbers with wooden pegs to build the superstructure The church's wood edifice and the arched wooden ceiling beams are believed to have been salvaged from sailing ships.
