In the early 1980s, a well-respected African American community member in Gainesville, Florida Joel Buchanan, had the foresight to preserve the voices and stories from his old neighborhood. Joel was born in the heart of Gainesville’s closely knit African American community. He attended Lincoln High School until eleventh grade, when in 1964, he was one of three students selected to desegregate the all-white Gainesville High School.
The interviews between Joel and members of the community are treasures. Joel’s intimate knowledge of African American culture, his love for his history and upbringing, and his respect for his elders come through clearly, as does their patient tutelage of Joel. These are front porch conversations with lemonade—storytelling at its finest. Noting the changes that were rapidly occurring within the African American community, Joel asks insightful questions that make the web of political, educational, and cultural networks in the community visible. Fifth Avenue, the street for which the project is named, was once the main thoroughfare of Gainesville’s thriving African American community (the Pleasant Street District), housing a great many of its businesses and homes, and its school.
A trained historian, Joel’s keen insights, probing questions and extensive connections created intimate interviews with African American leaders, teachers, students, and principals who lived and worked in Gainesville’s Black community during Jim Crow. This collection now called The Fifth Avenue Blacks Collection is housed in the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida.
This interview conducted by Joel Buchanan features Oliver Jones(son) and A. Quinn Jones (father), who was 94 years old at the time. A. Quinn Jones was the Founder of Lincoln High School in Gainesville, Florida. He served as Principal from Professor A. Quinn Jones as served as Principal of The Union Academy and its predecessor Lincoln High School from 1921-1967.
A. Quinn Jones was one of seven children born in Quincy, Florida to Rosa McDonald Jones and Joseph Thomas Jones. He attended public school in Quincy, Florida and then continued his schooling in Tallahassee, Florida. In the eighth grade, he was encouraged to apply for admission to the State Normal College for Colored Students at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College (FAMC), renamed Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU).
Mabel Dorsey was both a student and then a teacher and department chair at Linciln High School. She attended Lincoln as a student from 1935-1939. Her family moved from New Rochelle, Florida to Gainesville so that she could attain a high school diploma. There was no high school in New Rochelle that degrees to Black students. Lincoln gave Mrs. Dorsey a window into a new world. After graduating, Dorsey attended Bethune Cookman College and them Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University to become a teacher. She returned to Gainesville as a faculty member at Lincoln in 1944.