The City of St. Augustine (City) is soliciting competitive proposals from qualified outside teams that provide professional cultural resource consultant and graphic designer services. The City of St. Augustine has secured heritage education grant funds through the Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, to explore and share the history of Black education in the Lincolnville community. This heritage education project will explore, promote, and preserve the history of Black schools in the Lincolnville National Register Historic District of St. Augustine. These sites collectively contribute to the rich historic narrative of the city’s Black community. This grant will create and design a temporary pop-up exhibit and website to educate and engage a broad audience about the archaeology of two (2) Black schools investigated by the City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program. Between 2021 and 2024, the Archaeology Program conducted separate excavation projects at the former location of 2 Black schools in Lincolnville: School No. 2 and St. Benedict the Moor School. The Junior High and Graded School, also called School No. 2, was built in the late 1800s and was the first public Black school in Lincolnville. Due to overcrowding, it was replaced by Excelsior, another segregated school. St. Benedict was the first Black Catholic School in the neighborhood. Required by City code, archaeology at both schools yielded abundant information about the education and lifeways of Black children post-emancipation including school supplies (pencils, chalk, slate tablets), personal items, foodways, and even vaccines! Together these projects provide a narrative about children rarely gleaned from the archaeological and historical record. The purpose of this project is to provide documentation and information about little-known historical properties through an archaeological and historical lens and present a contextual framework about the significance of St. Augustine’s segregated schools within this community. The project aims to incorporate archival records, archaeological research, oral histories, and artifact collections to present a comprehensive narrative about post-emancipation Black education in St. Augustine. The final project will include two elements: 1) a travelling pop-up exhibit that includes freestanding pop-up banners, interpretative signs, and an artifact collection; and 2) an interactive StoryMap that is accessible on both mobile and desktop platforms. A total of two (2) contracts may be awarded by the City to include Cultural Resource services for each or both of the projects within the Scope: Exhibit Design and Historical Research.
