John g riley biography

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So usually in most of these black independent communities, you would find a school and churches, and usually a cemetery attached to the church.

But it's a richness that people have missed all these years. In order to fund projects that were overlooked by the mostly white historical establishment, she realised that she needed to sit on committees that decided which grants should be awarded, and then she sat on those committees.

Althemese Barnes: But to this day, there are still resistant.

You make this into cascades park, bam, no reference to smoke hour that went on for about two years.

Finally, after a shift in project management, Barnes was invited to create a group that would commemorate Smokey Hollow at Cascades Park.

Althemese Barnes: So we met for about, I would say two and a half, three years identified people from Smokey Hollow, brought them in.

He had an auction.

Barnes says that it was the preservationists’ goal that the house would serve as a center to interpret local African American history.

And that’s where Barnes comes in. Oh yes. “The city bought it for back taxes and the plan was to demolish it and erect an electric substation on this site. And this is all a part of this social justice that people talk about.

They had a school that operated out of new Saint John AME church. The home was preserved but underutilized for 15 years.

“The people who saved the house didn’t live long enough to do the second thing that they wanted to have happen, which was for it to be a museum to preserve African American history and promote history,” says Barnes. Black people, especially the men were in danger.

Yes. Dred Scott decision. Althemese Barnes Turned It Into a Museum on Tallahassee’s Black History

John Gilmore Riley was born enslaved on a Tallahassee, Florida plantation in 1857.

Althemese Barnes: John Gilmore Riley was born into slavery about three blocks from here. It is believed that Riley was self-educated, but further research shows Professor Riley did study at colleges and universities.

The location reviews of the John G. Riley House and Museum mostly express gratitude to learn what reviews didn’t learn in school. After building his home on East Jefferson Street in Tallahassee, Professor Riley began to buy and sell property in the capital city. Um, they had a Woodyard and I say all that to say that it was a pretty much self sustaining community.

“He lived to experience much change in those 97 years. The building opened as a house museum in the mid-1990s.

“The house was almost lost,” says Barnes.