Exploring St. Petersburg’s Civil Rights History
As St. Pete grows, so does the interest in our culture and history. Currently, there are many popular and informative tours of downtown and beyond, but only one examines one of the most important times in our city’s history: Civil Rights Era.
The St. Petersburg Museum of History’s Historic Civil Rights Trolley Tour invites passengers on a compelling ride into the city’s often overlooked past. Winding through streets of St. Petersburg once marked by segregation, the trolley takes passengers through neighborhoods and by landmarks that once stood at the center of the city’s local civil rights movement.
Lead by Museum Director Rui Farias, the tour immerses passengers in powerful stories about pivotal moments and courageous individuals who helped shape the area’s fight for racial equality. Farias captivates and educates attendees about the city’s role in discrimination, prejudice, and inequality, and shares the amazing stories of the individuals who guided St. Petersburg on a path toward change and justice. The tour touches on stories about Spa Beach and South Mole Beach, lunch counter sit-ins, stories of segregation in our city’s historic hotels, music that came to the Coliseum and the Manhattan Casino, a brave act at City Hall, and how even baseball played a large role in shaping the civil rights movement here at home. This trolley tour opens our eyes to events in our city’s history that have been hidden in plain sight.
“When you learn about civil rights history in school, you learn about Selma, Birmingham, Memphis, Jackson, Atlanta,” said Farias. “You never really learn about Florida, and that is a gigantic mistake because everything that happened in those traditional Southern states happened here in Florida, and especially here in St. Petersburg.”
As the trolley rolls down the waterfront, Farias introduces passengers to the early struggles of and reality for St. Petersburg’s Black community, including restricted beach and pool access that led to wade-ins that were a significant part of the civil rights movement in Florida. The tour then highlights sites and neighborhoods, including Jordan Park, the city’s first Black public housing complex, as well as the Manhattan Casino and the jazz era musicians who came and played there after having performed at the Coliseum. Each stop paints a grim picture of the reality for Black residents during this time but also shows the persistence and fortitude that sparked the civil rights movement in the city.
When the tour comes to an end, Farias closes by saying, “Usually, we want our trolley tours to be fun. We are learning about history and having a great time, but this is not meant to be a fun trolley tour; this is meant to be an eye-opening trolley tour. This is our history that we cannot forget. You have to teach the good, the bad, and the ugly because we did all of it here. It is just part of our fabric here in St. Petersburg, and we need to make sure that we never have that happen again.”
As Farias says, this tour may not be “fun” in the traditional sense, but don’t let that deter you from attending. This tour is packed with information about historical events in our city that even long-time residents unaware of.
“So much of civil rights history has been hidden or swept under the rug for such a long time,” said Farias, “so my goal is to keep adding to the tour. There are so many more personal stories. It is important they are told.” When asked what he hopes visitors take away from the tour, Farias shared, “Knowledge of what St. Petersburg was like and how far we have come, but we still have a long way to go.”
Find the Historic Civil Rights Trolley Tour at the St. Petersburg History Museum on the fourth Saturday of each month. The next tour will be May 24 from 9-11 am. Learn more at spmoh.com.
