This history (and photos) of Lakeland’s Moorehead community

This is a contributor-submitted Voices piece in collaboration with Nate Fleming, the Executive Director of Lkld Live, founder and owner of Lkld Food Tours + founder of Swan City Improv. Want to join the conversation? We invite you to write for us. Learn how to share your voice here.

DYK the location where the RP Funding Center stands today used to be home to an African American community created by freedmen and women from up north? In 1883 — nearly two years before the City of Lakeland became incorporated as “Lakeland” — this pivotal growing neighborhood was full of people who moved to the south to either work on the railroad, in the phosphate mines, or the orange groves of a pre-Lakeland.

While the place they settled initially didn’t have a name, historical documents note its moniker around 1925 when the community named it Moorehead (or possibly Morehead/Moorhead).

Here are some historical facts about the Moorehead community:

• The community built one of the first churches to ever exist in the Lakeland area, St. John’s Baptist Church.
• By the late 1880s, the first school opened in Moorehead, called the Lakeland Colored School — which paved the way for secondary all-Black schools to exist like Rochelle High School and Washington Park High School. Additionally, there was also a two-story school in the community that was partially funded by the city in 1914. Under “mysterious circumstances,” it burned down and was replaced by a one-story structure that was then closed in 1960. The students were then transferred to what is now Lincoln Avenue Academy.
• Within the community, you could find a juke joint owned by Elijah “Shanghai” Jackson. The juke joint sold sandwiches, soda, and beer, but, if you paid the right price you could also purchase liquor, even though it was banned in Polk County at the time.
• In 1938, the Moorehead neighborhood made national news and was featured in Life Magazine when a mob of 200 KKK members paraded through the neighborhood.
• In the 1970s, the city decided to use the neighborhood as the site for a new civic center + purchased 131 homes and vacant houses for $2,000-$10,000 per property — an act that ended up displacing over 120 families within the community.

While Moorehead was one of the first neighborhoods in Lakeland — a thriving and vibrant community — there is still so much more to be recorded about its existence.

Near the RP Funding Center, passersby can find a plaque with a brief history of the Moorehead community.

Scroll through a gallery of photos of the Moorhead community below.

Photo gallery

Louella Jackson, working at the bar owned by her + her husband in Lakeland FL, in 1967. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Louella Jackson, with David LaFrancine, in Lakeland, Florida. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

LaFrancine Jackson at Shanghi’s Place in Lakeland, FL. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Elijah “Shanghi” Jackson in, Lakeland, Florida. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Resident Amy Cason of the Moorehead Community. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Resident James “Dubbie” Bingham of the Moorehead Community. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Annie “Lucille” Hodges, a resident of the Moorehead community in Lakeland, FL. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Anna Jones + Bernadette Keiseg in the Moorehead community on Lime St. in Lakeland, FL. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Azzie Lee Bingham, a resident of the Moorehead community in Lakeland, FL. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Native-born Moorehead residents, Bennie Jr., Jessie Wright, Joseph C., and Walker C. in the Moorehead community in 1974. | Photo contributed by @Northstartv1

Scroll through more photos of the Moorehead community via the Twitter thread below.