Fortune Taylor Ranson

06/01/2026

Hear the story behind "Bourgeois Blues" from Jake Lamar himself.

Join the next Black History Book Club on June 29, 2026, for a special conversation with author Jake Lamar. Lamar, a Harvard alumnus, writer and journalist, will join readers for a discussion of his autobiographical work exploring race, class, social mobility and coming of age in the 1970s and 1980s.

This free event begins at 5:30 p.m. at Tampa's Black History Museum located on 1213 N. Central Ave.

06/01/2026

06/01/2026

So goes the Historic Fortune Taylor Bridge

Old City Hall will be illuminated to highlight organizations & special causes throughout the month of June:
Jun 1: Be the Light - Blue
Jun 1-30: Pride Month (unless otherwise scheduled) - Rainbow
Jun 2: Captain Samuel Carter - Blue
Jun 3: Spinal CSF Leak Awareness Week - Purple
Jun 4: Migraine and Headache Awareness Month - Purple
Jun 5: National Naloxone Awareness Day - Purple
Jun 15: Cavernous Malformation Awareness - Red and White
Jun 16-19: Juneteenth - Red, Green, Yellow
Jun 25: World Vitiligo - Purple
Jun 27: Scleroderma Awareness - Teal
Jun 29: Officer David Curtis & Officer Jeffrey Kocab - Blue

05/31/2026

It’s National Smile Day, a good time to check out this fun button with the smiling orange! The Florida Council of 100 issued this button in 1963. Formed in 1961, the Florida Council of 100 is comprised of business leaders that advise government officials on issues pertaining to Florida’s economy and quality of life for its residents. An early focus of the Council centered on promoting tourism. In January 1963, the Council launched its Courtesy Campaign, a two-month long, statewide effort to make tourists feel welcome. The smiling orange was the theme of the campaign. State agencies, news media, businesses, and civic organizations all participated. Newspapers were encouraged to publish editorials welcoming tourists, billboards went up along some highways, and the Council issued posters and other memorabilia, including these smiling orange buttons that Floridians could wear when greeting tourists. May this cheery button help you smile today!

📷: Promotional button, 1963. Collection of the Museum of Florida History

05/30/2026

May 30 2026
📸: Gloria Jean Royster

05/29/2026

100 Best Free Online Genealogy Websites (Updated Quicksheet)

Do you have some "go to" free websites for searching and browsing for pertinent genealogy records and record collections? These are my 100 favorite/popular websites for you to look through from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Maybe there are a few you don't use or may not have even heard of.

Download all the Quicksheet PDF pages and start visiting these websites at https://theancestorhunt.com/blog/100-best-free-online-genealogy-websites/

05/29/2026

Just weeks after the end of the Civil War, on May 29, 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued his first Proclamation of Amnesty, establishing what Reconstruction would be under his presidency. Once former Confederates took an oath of allegiance, most were eligible to have their lands returned to them, even those that had been redistributed to formerly enslaved people through Special Orders 15.

In October of 1865 a committee of Freedmen from Edisto Island wrote to President Johnson, to advocate for the land they had begun farming and building communities upon. They wrote:

"We are ready to pay for this land When Government calls for it. and now after What has been done will the good and just government take from us all this right and make us Subject to the will of those who have cheated and Oppressed us for many years… We the freedmen of this Island and of the State of South Carolina–Do therefore petition to you as the President of these United States, that some provisions be made by which Every colored man can purchase land. and Hold it as his own."

IMAGE: LOC