Making Our Voices Heard: Power and Citizenship in Central Florida\u27s Black Communities

This thesis examines the impacts of government policies on community mobilization in Orlando\u27s Parramore neighborhood and the all-black town of Eatonville in Central Florida. The scope of this thesis covers the history of both communities from their formation in the 1880s to the end of the twentieth century. This research reveals the relationships between the predominantly black residents of Parramore and Eatonville and the largely white government officials over the development and maintenance of each community. By understanding the social creation of both communities during the era of Jim Crow, this thesis reveals the differing levels of power each community possessed that would impact their ability to turn their defined black spaces into black places. Moving forward, each community had to adjust to the impacts of integration that weakened the communal bonds that helped the community endure Jim Crow. However, in detailing the rise of citizen activism in the post-World War II period, the theory of infrastructural citizenship shapes this thesis in revealing how black residents in Parramore and Eatonville exercised their rights as citizens in making their voices heard surrounding various infrastructural changes. While their efforts did not always achieve their ultimate goals, it forced decision makers to anticipate and accommodate the opinions of the residents impacted by these decisions. This thesis uses historical analysis to place Parramore and Eatonville within the broader social, political, and economic contexts of events occurring in Florida, the American South and the country at large