Residents of historically Black town sue to stop land sale

ORLANDO, Fla. — One of the first historically Black towns in the U.S. is suing the local school board to stop the sale of land that is tied up with Florida’s legacy of racial segregation decades ago and the state’s fast-paced growth nowadays. An association dedicated to the preservation of the town of Eatonville’s cultural history last Friday sued the Orange County School Board in an effort to stop the sale of the 100-acre property where the Robert Hungerford Preparatory High School once stood. “If this sale is allowed to proceed, the rich culture and heritage of the town that Zora Neale Hurston popularized around the world as ‘the first incorporated African American community in the United States’ will be erased,” said said N.Y. Nathiri, executive director of the association, which is being represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Orange County School Board purchased the property from a trust in 1951 under a deed restriction that the school would continue to be used to educate Black children.