ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Behind every state park, there is a story. Sometimes it’s a crazy story, really, like that of Fort Mose, almost hidden away in a tangled forest of scrub palmetto, oak and pine along U.S. Highway 1 just north of St. Augustine. Crazy, in that not many people know it exists but absolutely should. It is here, in the far reaches of Florida’s northeast corner, where one of the most important roads to Black history begins.
The ruins of Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in what is now the United States, lie here on a small 40-acre patch of land on Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway.
I have lived in the Southeast my entire life and know the basic building blocks of history of Georgia and Florida going back to James Oglethorpe and Juan Ponce de Leon. But I had never heard of Fort Mose until I happened upon an advertisement for the Fort Mose Jazz and Blues Series, a music festival that will be held in late February at the now state park and historic site. When I first researched the fort, I came away astounded that so few know of its existence. Determined to learn more about it, my husband and I set out on a cold, gray winter morning for the three-hour drive from our home to Fort Mose.
