Martinique Lewis is president of the Black Travel Alliance, a nonprofit that focuses on diversity in travel marketing and travel storytelling. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today

PHOTO ESSAY | Black joy in Jacksonville

Published on August 31, 2023 at 6:27 pm

Words and photos by Will Brown

We planned to publish this essay at the end of the year.

Saturday changed that timeline.

Alayah Collins, 6, is an Eastside resident who enjoys playing basketball and T-ball and cheerleading.

Jacksonville needs to see Black joy now.

“I’m not going to wait to get to heaven to experience life,” St. Paul AME Church pastor the Rev. Dr. Willie Nathaniel Barnes Jr. preached on Sunday morning, the day after the racially motivated violence at a Dollar General took the lives of Angela Carr, Anolt “A.J.” Laguerre Jr. and Jerrald Gallion. “I’m not going to wait until I get to heaven to experience peace. I’m not going to wait until I get to heaven to experience joy.”

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This week was a reminder that some people in our community do not see the humanity of their neighbors.

Over the last six months, I have aimed to capture a three-dimensional look at Black people in Jacksonville. I have attended graduations and parades but also been on the lookout to capture the genuine smiles in more mundane moments of joy.

Eastside native Ashantae Green is among the hundreds attending a vigil to remember Angela Carr, A.J. Laguerre Jr. and Jerrald Gallion. The three were killed on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023, in a mass shooting being investigated as a hate crime.

Too often, media depict Black people as athletes or entertainers — or, worse, nothing more than the victims or perpetrators of crimes.

This photo essay is a head nod to the nuance and the full lives of the more than 300,000 Black Americans who live in Jacksonville.

Ben Frazier and former Congresswoman Corrine Brown celebrated Donna Deegan becoming Jacksonville’s first female mayor at Estrella Cocina on May 16, 2023. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today

Will Brown Reporter Will Brown is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He previously reported for the Jacksonville Business Journal. And before that, he spent more than a decade as a sports reporter at The St. Augustine Record, Victoria (Texas) Advocate and the Tallahassee Democrat. Reach him at will@jaxtoday.org.

Will Brown Reporter Will Brown is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He previously reported for the Jacksonville Business Journal. And before that, he spent more than a decade as a sports reporter at The St. Augustine Record, Victoria (Texas) Advocate and the Tallahassee Democrat. Reach him at will@jaxtoday.org.

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