Jacksonville deserves good citizens. Every city does, of course, but Jacksonville is complicated and authentic. Unlike some of our peer cities in Florida that have had to “imagineer” their brand or invent legends about their past (looking at you, Orlando and Tampa), the real people and events of Jacksonville are interesting enough. We don’t have to make anything up.
All this city asks of its people is that they care about it. Few Jacksonville stories are suitable for theme parks or festive celebrations. Some of what has happened here over the past 202 years has been magic, and some has been tragic. It is a city that reflects the lives of its people, past and present, with joys and sorrows, problems and gifts. Like each of us, it consists of its past and present and its idea about the future. Of those, the most influential is the past. That is where citizens look to understand the place where they live.
Because Jacksonville is ours, we inherited its past and own it in the present. Those are what we use to imagine its future. Like every city, it has a collective pulse and heartbeat, and a life all its own that continues day and night, when we are awake, asleep or traveling far away. And like every city, Jacksonville has terrible problems. Jacksonville has violent crime, decrepit infrastructure, pollution, and schools that face daunting financial deficits. Parts of the city are threatened by rising sea levels. Its people are often divided, sometimes bitterly, over how to solve its problems. Division has always existed, though – here and elsewhere. Reconciling division is the purpose of democracy.
Jacksonville also has unique gifts, things that make it a place like no other. Does a sprawling geography make a city interesting? Consider what we would see if we could just follow lines between the four corners of Jacksonville, from sparkling Nassau Sound in the northeast to Maxville in the southwest, and from Thomas Creek along New Kings Road to Nocatee in the very southeast corner. The immense St. Johns River connects and separates it all and is the city’s single most defining feature, splitting the city in half, dictating its downtown skyline and creating its neighborhood boundaries. The largest city in the lower 48 states is dependent on automobiles, but (counting the Mayport Ferry) motorists can only cross the river at eight points along the 35 miles of the river’s length in Duval County. The lives of some Jacksonvillians take place entirely on one side or the other of a deep, wide, lovely river.
Jacksonville is a seaport of immigration and a Navy town. Those distinctive features help explain our complex human population. Jacksonville’s citizens may identify as Asian, Caribbean, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Caucasian and African – and each regional identity can be complicated within itself. Our Caribbean community, for example, includes people of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Haitian origin, to name just a few. The roots of this complicated social milieu go back to Jacksonville’s founding moment. Until the year before, in 1821, the people of the new little town on the bank of the St. Johns River had been subjects of the King of Spain. They became Americans without being asked, and with little notice.
In 1940, the U.S. Navy arrived in Jacksonville to stay. Since then, hundreds of thousands of military and civilian personnel have moved through Jacksonville, shaping and being shaped by the experience. Many of them stayed or returned to become citizens. Not for nothing did Jacksonville become, in 2008, home to the newest National Cemetery in Florida. In America, military service crosses every boundary of race, gender, class and ethnicity, which means that even the city’s “Navy town” story is rich and complex.
In this city you can stand in certain places looking at a scene of industrial grittiness, a remnant perhaps of Jacksonville’s shipbuilding or railroad heritage. Then just by turning around, you may be faced with a vision of astonishing and timeless natural beauty, like a sunset over the river. Both define Jacksonville.
Those few examples of Jacksonville’s identity help explain the city’s authenticity. A place that is honest about itself and its past is a place that can credibly hold out the promise of a better future. That is why Jacksonville deserves the best we citizens can give it. That’s why Jacksonville’s history matters, and that is why there is a Jacksonville History Center.
Alan J. Bliss, Ph.D. | CEO, Jacksonville History Center