06-02-2025
This historian wants you to learn Broward's Black history. His flashcards might help
Not everyone in Broward knows the story of Clarence C. Walker. But Emmanuel George wants to change that.
Walker became the second Black principal of Dillard High School in 1938, Fort Lauderdale's first public school for Black students. Walker lobbied the school board to make the school, which was named after Black-education advocate James H. Dillard, the first accredited public school for Black students. Local white farmers, worried that their free and cheap young Black labor force would opt to seek an education instead of helping with the harvest, pushed the school board to shorten the school year so the students could work. The school board eventually gave in to the farmers' in 1942. After a day of arguing in front of the school board, Walker left with a great deal of frustration.
'When he went home, he was so hurt and bothered that he actually ended up succumbing to a heart attack,' George said. 'So it's stated that he died of a broken heart.'
These are the stories about Broward that Emmanuel George wants to preserve.
'Broward County has a lot of global Black history. It's not just local Black history,' George told the Miami Herald. George is curator and community liaison at the Old Dillard Museum, which documents Black history in South Florida. 'I want to be able to show that so that other people across the world can look into their own local Black history in their community and see that it is global. And if we adopt that mindset, we would not minimize our community's history.'
The preservation of Broward's Black history comes at a crucial time: The teaching of Black history has been significantly limited with the passing of Florida's 'Stop Woke' legislation, a statute limiting how race-related issues are taught in schools, colleges and in workplace trainings. As Florida's legislators attempt to make schools and universities sanitize the history of Black trauma and white aggression or omit the achievements of Black Floridians from history lessons, local historians and educators like George are making it their mission to keep history alive.
READ: Trump's purge of DEI programs incenses Black leaders in South Florida
George is also the founder of Black Broward, an Instagram account devoted to sharing tidbits of Broward County's Black history. The concept started in 2018 when he began sharing Black history facts for the month of February and continuing it when he saw how it resonated with people. The account has nearly 5,000 followers. On it, you'll find stories of Liberia, a historically Black neighborhood in Hollywood, throwback photos of Black people living in Broward, and little known historical facts about the county's Black pioneers such as Dr. Von D. Mizell, who helped establish Provident Hospital for Black Americans, and civil rights activist Eula Mae Johnson.
But now George is taking his digital Black Broward concept and making it analog, with Black Broward Flashcards. The flashcards come 24 cards to a deck with three source citation cards, detailing where information on the figures can be found, and are broken down into different regional areas – South, Central and North Broward – that feature prominent figures who lived in or did work in those areas. The cards feature historical places of note and other well known historical figures, such as Dr. James Sistrunk and Broward county educator Joseph A. Ely.
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The project was done in collaboration with David Paulo, also known by his online moniker ShotByLeather, who chronicles historical landmarks in Broward County. The duo, along with Samuel Woods, created an online platform, that chronicles Black history and culture through social and digital platforms. George said the flashcards, which will be sold through the website for $20, are great for card collectors and can help students, but he also emphasized, 'It's also a cool and creative way to educate people beyond the classroom.'
George hopes the flashcards, which tell Walker's story and those of other Black activists and civil rights pioneers, will be used in classrooms to teach students about their local Black history, something he said he wasn't exposed to as a student in Hollywood. 'There really wasn't much being taught of Black history, just being honest,' he said. 'Just, you know, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King had a dream, and that was really it. A lot of the history I learned was actually outside of school.'
'A younger generation that is hungry for our stories'
George had always been a history buff and knowledgeable about Black history as told to him by his dad. 'I had to tell it to him because we have to know where we come from and who we are,' his father, also named Emmanuel George, told the Herald. 'It makes me feel good knowing that he knows about himself, about his past, about his history – our history. I'm happy that he is where he is, being conscious.'
George was born in Overtown but moved to Hollywood in 2002 where he graduate from South Broward High School and later attended Broward College and Full Sail University in Central Florida to study film. But his interest in Black history deepened after seeing historian and retired professor Marvin Dunn's documentary 'Black Miami in the 20th Century.'
'When I stumbled upon that, I'm like OK, there's a Black Miami, there has to be a Black Broward,' George said.
It wasn't until he read former Florida Atlantic University professor and Miami Herald reporter Kitty Oliver's book, 'Voices of America: Race and Change in Hollywood, Florida,' that he affirmed his love for preserving Black history. George loved the book so much he emailed Oliver to connect with her about her work.
Their connection led Oliver to recommend him for an African American archive project in Lake Wales, a city near Lakeland, Fla., where George interviewed residents from the historic Lincoln Avenue community and archived their stories.
'He already had such a good grasp of South Florida history through some creative work he'd been doing in Miami,' she told the Herald.
The Lake Wells project led to back-to-back fellowships for George, including the CoGenerators fellowship in San Francisco. Prior to his work on the project, he produced his first film in 2016 under the Black Broward Film Project, 'The Tale of Sibling Communities: Liberia and Danie.' He would go on to produce a second film in 2021, 'Stories from our Ancestors: An Ode to Attucks High School,' that focused on how closing a historically Black high school affected Liberia and neighboring communities. His work is available on The Hub, a YouTube account also run by George and his partners, where people curious about Broward Black history and culture can browse through footage and films.
George's work also earned him the honor of being the youngest person in Broward County to have his own special collections archive, the Emmanuel George Collection held at the African American Research Library. (That record was later claimed by Paulo.) The collection includes physical and digitally archived information on the history of Attucks High School.
'Emmanuel represents something that I think we need to be reminded of, especially my generation and the elders, there may tend to be a sense that younger people are not knowledgeable about our history or not interested in that. That is absolutely not true,' she said. 'Emmanuel is indicative of a younger generation that is hungry for our stories and hungry to learn from the past and learn from history and how it can apply to them today and use that as a foundation to move forward.'
'People like him are a crucial part of Black history right now because they see the importance of history that came before,' she continued.
'There's an authenticity'
George's work was crucial in helping actor Wood Harris, perhaps most known for his iconic role as Avon Barksdale on HBO's 'The Wire,' find more information on his dad, who was in the first graduating class of Attucks High School in Hollywood.
Harris' cousin Pam Walker saw a photo posted on George's Black Broward Instagram page and contacted him about it. 'I got their first graduation class photo there and she was able to identify him,' George said, 'and then I also found a couple newspaper clippings about their father taking part in fishing tournaments at Ojus, which is now Aventura.' George said Harris thanked him with a video message.
'It resonates with people, because there's an authenticity about history, because it's all factual,' said George's friend and business partner Woods, 'but it's also telling our stories the way that we want them told, and making sure that it's an intergenerational connection between our elders and our youth.' The two met five years ago and Woods described George as a humble and giving person, having made him the godfather of his daughter.
That same spirit and love for history and preservation is how Paulo and George connected. Paulo, who is a landmark photographer, said their work goes hand in hand.
Still, he emphasized he learned his Black history through George's work. 'I'm kind of a late bloomer on learning the history around me. A lot of big cities, it feels, get their history plastered everywhere, like New York, Chicago, L.A., but when it came to Broward, I didn't know that these were the people who are the pioneers for a lot of stuff going on in my community,' said the Lauderhill native.
Woods said George's work is more important now than ever with efforts to suppress teaching Black history in schools and anti-diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the board.
'I think that it's just progressively gotten worse in our school system, where the information is just not available,' He said. 'Either they're removing it or it was never there from the start… You don't get to know these people, their stories, their journey, their why, the who, the whens and the wheres, and you literally have to dig for them. And that's why the work that Emmanuel does and that we're doing and assisting with is just so imperative, especially with our elders leaving us every day.'
George acknowledged the challenges that lie ahead when it comes to teaching and preserving Black history, but he is undeterred.
'I truly feel that yeah, there's a lot of efforts to suppress Black history, but I truly do know that we will always still be able to teach Black history,' he said. 'It might be through the flash cards. It might be through coloring books ... so many different ways.'
