Using the "Arts' as a catalyst for enriching and empowering. To move forward enrichment, history and culture via the 'arts'. To identify and address the specialized needs of young visual and performing artists, as well as, provide creative solutions to youth development.
As the community battles attempts of erasure, Capital B spoke to natives of Royal, Florida about the reverence for their hometown.
As the community battles attempts of erasure, Capital B spoke to natives of Royal, Florida about the reverence for their hometown. If you ask any native, they all know the history of Royal, Florida, mostly because they are living descendants of it. As 67-year-old minister Janice Rivers put it: “There was not one corner that you could go to where the individuals didn’t know each other’s names or their history. You could talk to the elders and learn more about your lineage.” Following the Civil War, freedmen founded the unincorporated community of Royal, formerly known as Picketsville to signify the white picket fences around the 40-acre homesteads. The first Black families owned land in 1870, despite oral history referencing it much earlier. By 1891, the community established its first post office. By then, it became Royal. The area is known for its prominence in agriculture, which helped bolster Sumter County as “one of the leading vegetable producing counties in the U.S.” before the Great Depression. Today, remnants of the industry are still visible: acres of farmland, an old tobacco barn, and vegetable crops. Descendants of those families who inherited the land after the Civil War still live in Royal today. But, Royal as locals know it today is undergoing change as developers aggressively work to construct new homes, build industrial use projects, and force Black landowners to sell their land. As residents battle the attempts of erasure and gentrification, they’re working to get their home national recognition on the National Register of Historic Places. Capital B spoke to natives who still live on the land they inherited — and those who moved away — about their love, fond memories, and reverence for Royal. Here’s what they had to say.
Why a 90-year-old activist continues to keep Royal’s legacy alive.
Community activist Maitland Keiler, 90, reminisced about the days when Black men traveled by wagons or the Ford T-Model cars (if you could afford one) to go fishing while the women and children had picnics by the river. He recalled the community’s close-knit nature: the Smith family had facilities to slaughter hogs for crackling and sauces, and to grind sugarcane to make syrup to help feed the entire community. “The whole community would go up there and help. They would pay the people off in meat … cracklings and sauces,” Keiler said. “Now, that’s no more.” In the early 1950s, he moved around to Leesburg and Apopka, where he picked oranges. A few years later, he helped bring the first health clinic — Project Health Inc., now Langley Medical Services — to Sumter County in 1974, but never received credit or recognition for it. In 2008, he received an award on the Congressional Record from the House of Representatives for his service. “Everybody got pictures on the clinic wall except me. I had never been honored down there and now they got five more under that clinic,” Keiler told Capital B. “Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of people get service because I sent the director down here and told him we needed something like that over in Sumter County.” Two years later, he moved back to Royal on the land his family acquired years ago. He continued his volunteer work through the Community of Royal Inc., where he serves as the oldest member on the board. He helped to launch a community garden to feed the community, but it ended due to lack of participation. “I’m too old now,” Keiler joked. He’s still active in the community — speaking out against injustice, attending local meetings, and sharing the history of Royal with visitors and tourists. “Royal is one of the most outstanding communities there are,” he told Capital B. “We had a guy do some research here, and he said Royal is the only place that still has the 40 acres. Some of it has been chopped up in 3, 4, 5, 10 acres, but it’s still there. It is a very, very interesting community.”
Descendants of Jim Patterson still live on the same land he homesteaded more than 100 years ago. (Courtesy of Young Performing Artists)
James Wideman, 47, thought back to hanging tobacco in the barn and picking peas. The old tobacco barn still sits on his family’s estate. At her grandmother’s dinner table on Thanksgiving, Suncara Johnson, 43, would hear many stories about her great-great-great-grandfather Jim Patterson, who has a road dedicated in his honor and acquired land in the 1860s. Deidra Russell, 37, shared the many times when her aunt Catherine retold the history of Royal every year at the Ebenezer A.M.E Church’s anniversary. Because of this, Russell “grew up knowing we are descendants from freedom from the Old Green plantation on the Withlacoochee River.” Wideman, Johnson, and Russell are all descendants of Patterson.
“Royal is like the family tree that is on family T-shirts. While it’s a small community, the roots run deep and the branches are just so vast,” Russell said. “We all still live in the state of Florida, but there are so many people who can trace their roots back to Royal. We’re all over the country. … It’s a dynamic community.” Despite distance, it’s this deep love and appreciation that serves as motivation for natives — near and far — to help preserve the greatest asset of this community: land. While it keeps families together, it doesn’t keep developers away. When Janice Rivers describes her upbringing in Royal, she mentions church, community gatherings, and appreciation for the rich history. It didn’t matter if it was a barbecue after Sunday service or evening walk to service, the elders made sure everyone knew the history.
Minister and Royal native Janice Rivers stands in the local historical center in February. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
Minister and Royal native Janice Rivers stands in the local historical center in February. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B) After graduating from high school in 1970, Rivers left Royal and moved to Orlando. About 18 years later, she began preaching. Similar to the others that left, she comes back occasionally. Even though she’s not physically there, she continues to preach the gospel about Royal. She recites a poem she wrote titled “Rise Up Royal,” which calls on residents to fight back against those hoping to destroy the history and culture. In a state that bans Black history, Rivers says it is even more paramount for Royal’s history to be documented nationally. “Royal needs to have its place in history. It needs to keep its place in history,” she said. “We want to be that spot where someone can come and see some of the things that cause this community to stick together — to hang in there to fight — with that bravery. That ability to not fear, but to fight for what we want,” Rivers said. “This is bringing the community of Royal together because it’s something people want, and they want it from their heart. They’re willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get those involved to try to keep a historical masterpiece.”
Beverly Steele is one of roughly 1,200 other Black residents of Royal, Florida, who still live on the inherited 40-acre plots from the Homestead Act of 1862. Today she and other community members are fighting to protect the historic community from encroaching development. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
ROYAL, Florida — The calmness of the wind reverberated across the burial ground as Beverly Steele motioned to her mother’s grave in Oak Hill Cemetery. Three months ago, they buried her here, just 12 days shy of her 102nd birthday. It’s not uncommon for residents in the majority-Black, unincorporated community of Royal, Florida, to live past 100 years old. The Rev. Matthew Beard, the oldest resident in the community’s history, lived to be 115.
On a recent February afternoon, Steele, dressed in her Sunday best, peered out at the acres and acres of land surrounding Oak Hill Cemetery, also known as the Royal Cemetery. As she reminisces about her mother, she also remembered her aunt, who was called on as the community’s local historian. She could recall who had the first brick house, the first postmaster, and the three founding families — Hollies, Picketts, and Andersons — of the community.
The sounds of large trucks chugging down the narrow road near the cemetery snap Steele back to today’s reality. Mere miles away from the site is Interstate 75, which split the community of Royal in half 50 years ago. A few miles from there is the old Monarch Road cemetery, or old slave cemetery as the locals call it. It, too, is split in half by a paved road. A family lives on the primary site where most of the headstones can be seen. It is the cemetery where Steele’s great-great-great-grandfather — and one of the community’s co-founders — is buried.
Tucked away, 55 miles north of Orlando, Royal’s estimated 1,200 Black residents still live on the inherited 40-acre plots from the Homestead Act of 1862. The close-knit community is located in the city of Wildwood, which in the past two decades has grown in population to 150,000. The 77-year-old Steele and other Royal residents say the rapid growth of The Villages, a retirement community that borders Wildwood, is part of the constant development efforts upending their lives.
Recent plans for highways, affordable housing units, and industrial use projects are disrupting their peace and comfort. In some cases, residents have been pressured to sell their land. Several community members raised concerns to Capital B that these attacks are attempts to erase its history and gentrify its neighborhoods. They also fear the increased traffic and industrial pollution from the projects will cause detrimental health effects in its community of mostly elders.
Steele is also fighting for Royal to get national recognition. Beyond its unique, rural and historical landscape, it is one of the few surviving historic communities, despite the history of Black towns being destroyed or violently displaced. Royal is one of two remaining Black homesteading communities left in the nation. The other is Nicodemus, Kansas. The Homestead Act allowed citizens to own land given by the U.S. government after five years of living on and improving it. The historic preservation and continued existence of Royal is even more paramount in a state like Florida, where the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Black folks in lieu of the laws banning Black history courses and dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Steele’s battle is arduous, but too important to give up. New homeowners in the Highland Hills complex will live directly across the street from Oak Hill, where Steele’s mother was laid to rest. She also fears Royal residents will eventually be displaced.
Through her nonprofit, Young Performing Artists Inc., Steele began sharing the community’s history with youth more than 25 years ago. In turn, the kids shared the history with their parents and grandparents.
“People knew that they had land passed down, but they didn’t have any idea of how we got the land, why the 40 acres, and the significance of Royal and African Americans being able to get the land at the time that they did,” the local historian told Capital B. “It’s tremendous to us because they were able to take the message even further than we were.”
This history led Steele on a decades-long pursuit to get the history documented, verified, and listed on the National Park Services’ National Register of Historic Places. It’s been no small feat. After submitting its application for nomination, Steele says state officials redrew the community’s boundaries to exclude historically Black properties. White landowners also objected: they didn’t want their properties included in the listing. Last fall, Steele secured legal help and guidance from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Being listed on the National Register won’t stop developers from encroaching on their community. Their hope, though, is that the historic designation will protect its boundaries and lead to more restrictions that make it harder for development that isn’t culturally or historically appropriate, they say.
“Land is an asset, and we want our generations to be able to benefit from that,” Steele said. “The threats we’re facing, what’s so empowering about it is that everyone supports Royal being recognized, but they want to diminish the boundaries … diminish the value of this land and our intergenerational wealth that we have gained.”
Steele said the locals aren’t afraid of development, but they want development that’s more characteristic of the historic community, and they want county officials to start recognizing the community’s historic value.
“For seven generations now, land in Royal has passed from one generation to the next in spite of centuries of racial violence and economic displacement. Today, land can be used as a powerful tool for growing generational wealth but can just as easily be used to strip communities of their wealth,” said Malissa Williams, senior attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This isn’t the first time Royal citizens have come up against efforts to build in their community. Residents, along with Sumter County commissioners, rejected a plan in 1988 to construct a turnpike through Royal. In 2019, state lawmakers approved a bill to construct the Northern Florida Extension, or turnpike project, to build three roads across rural central Florida, including Royal.
Although the bill was repealed, it was given new life in 2022. Community outrage led the Florida Department of Transportation to halt the extension project, which would’ve destroyed homes, a community center, and two churches in Royal.
A spokesperson from the Florida Department of Transportation wrote in an email statement to Capital B that the agency is focused on improving I-75 instead of the turnpike extension. It’s a direct result of the meaningful engagement from communities, including Royal.
“[In November], FDOT District Five Secretary John Tyler and other representatives with the Department met with interested residents and community leaders of Royal to discuss the proposed I-75 improvements, plans for the County Road 462 bridge, and retention pond locations,” the statement said. “We will continue to keep Royal and other surrounding communities engaged and informed as the project progresses.”
That win for the community was short-lived. After that, the county commissioners amended its comprehensive plan and approved rezoning requests for developers, despite fierce opposition from residents. Royal isn’t even included in the county’s comprehensive plan, which is a guide for growth and development for their jurisdictions.
In front of the entrance of the Oak Hill burial site will be Highland Homes Family Housing, a 532-home development on less than 200 acres, which goes along County Road 229 and State Road 44. The area borders a 400-acre farm owned by David Cuthers, who also spoke out against it, according to the local Villages News.
On the other side of the cemetery, where Steele and other Black families have lived since the founding of Royal in 1865, sits 60 acres owned by Werner Enterprises Inc., which wants to develop a truck stop near I-75 and State Road 44. The development is expected to generate an estimated 5,000 daily trips, which concerns some residents. The rezoning request for this project included nine requirements, including setbacks from adjacent property and restrictions on noise and truck idling. Commissioners also approved 8G Farm Inc.’s request to rezone 136 acres along County Road 475 for industrial development. Steele and Nathaniel Williams, a fellow Royal resident, challenged it, but were unsuccessful.
Some companies have even approached residents like 90-year-old Maitland Keiler and 98-year-old Annie Johnson to sell their land. Each letter is thrown into the garbage can because the land “is not for sale,” they told Capital B.
Keiler, along with his nieces and nephews, still lives on land his family inherited. They had a total of 80 acres, but have only 56 acres today. Some of the land was used to build I-75 and his family didn’t receive a fair price, he said.
“[The interstate] is right across the edge of my relatives’ land. And you know what? They just took that from us mostly. There were two prices. One for the Black one and one for white one,” Keiler said. “[One of the white owners] told my uncles before they died how much money they got [from the state] for their land. It was much more than what they gave us.”
Johnson believes that because Royal is an unincorporated, Black and older community, it makes them more vulnerable to such threats. Because they don’t have direct representation, their concerns go unheard.
A few months ago, her home mailbox got destroyed. Since Royal no longer has a post office, she now has to travel to Wildwood to get her mail, which is difficult because she doesn’t have transportation.
“They bleed the same blood that I bleed. They eat the same things I eat. They have to live on and live like me, and just because of the color of our skin, why are we different?” Johnson asked.
One of the biggest battles of contention stem from getting national recognition for Royal, which has been in the works long before the heightened development threats. In 2016, Steele hired Edward González-Tennant, historian and digital archaeologist, to conduct a Cultural Resources Assessment Survey, or CRAS, to document the historical resources in the community.
Aside from documentation, this allowed González-Tennant to solidify Royal as a local, state, and national treasure, he said, especially with the demise of similar communities in Florida.
He pointed to Rosewood, which was a thriving Black community less than 100 miles from Royal, until a racist and violent mob of white men destroyed the town and forced residents out in 1923. Steele believes the fate for Rosewood could have been the same for Royal, if it weren’t for Jesse Woods.
Every year, Beverly Steele hosts a presentation on Jesse Woods, Royal’s local hero. (Courtesy of Young Performing Artists)
Every year, Beverly Steele hosts a presentation on Jesse Woods, Royal’s local hero. (Courtesy of Young Performing Artists)
In 1956, Woods, a Black farmer from Royal, was arrested for allegedly saying “Hello there, baby” to a white school teacher in Wildwood. Wood was thrown in jail, kidnapped, and almost beaten to death by a group of white Ku Klux Klan members. With the help from the NAACP, a trial was held. During the trial, Woods refused to identify the men who tortured him. Steele believes this is what saved Royal from being “another Rosewood,” she said.
“These are places that faced violence and for little more than just existing as places where African Americans could pursue the American dream of having jobs and owning property and sending their kids to school and so forth,” González-Tennant said. “[Places like Rosewood] never had that opportunity to see what intergenerational wealth might be like for its descendants a century later. With Royal, you have a Black community that can sort of explore those things.”
He prepared an application and submitted it to the state’s historic preservation officer, the first step in the process. The proposal included 3,500 acres of land, but after white property owners contested the decision, they revised the boundaries to 2,500 acres. The state historic preservation officer redrew the boundaries to 1,945 acres, which Steele and González-Tennant say excluded about 24 Black families who have had land for generations.
One of those people: Mother Lily Soloman who was the first lady of the local Baptist church and second midwife in the community, Steele said.
The state went forward and sent their nomination to the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places. Last summer, the SPLC and González-Tennant sent separate petitions to the keeper to conduct a review and reconsider Royal’s national significance.
The keeper agreed in a recent opinion that the Royal community district met the criteria to be listed on the registry. It returned the nomination and asked the state to better document its boundaries and make technical edits to the nomination.
Beverly Steele hopes their battle inspires other communities to get involved. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
Beverly Steele hopes their battle inspires other communities to get involved. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
A spokesperson for the state denied the agency changed any boundaries. In an email statement to Capital B, the spokesperson confirmed that the revisions have been made and resubmitted for a final determination by the National Park Service. If the National Park Service approves the nomination, Royal would become the park service’s first rural district in Florida.
In the meantime, Steele and other community organizers are petitioning Sumter County officials to get Royal added in its comprehensive plan. They are also looking for other ways to work with the county to pass ordinances or laws to aid in the protection of their land.
Steele described her love to Royal by referencing the Bee Gees’ 1970s hit “How Deep Is Your Love.” And it’s that love that motivates her to keep fighting, in spite of the roadblocks.
“We’re not trying to hurt anyone. We’re not trying to stop development. We’re not trying to stop people from helping their families with what they have preserved as well,” Steele said. “But in our not trying to hurt our neighbors, we just can’t sit down and let our neighbors hurt us. When we can come together and talk together and get some of these things together, all of us would have benefited. But since that didn’t happen, we just can’t sit and let it just come in on us.”
Sharing how her people were crafty, swift, courageous, skillful, hardworking and thankful for their blessing. How some bared the burdens so that others could share the benefits.
Steele uses the basic language of her people to convey their stories. This story gets the reader’s mind in a ‘call to action’ mood. Prayerfully, bringing together people who share inspiration from the stories of her ancestor’s past to evoke social action.
Steele tells her people stories while being very careful, to ensure, that their oral stories are well respected and represented.
For these oral histories are the real witness to the Reconstruction era. These stories should become the true historical accounts to capture the heart, spirit and soul of an integral part of the ‘whole’ American historical picture.
It all began with the “40 Acres and a Mule” Civil War Proclamation
This story breathes life to the words of General Sherman’s Special Field Order #15. It’s a true account of how this order, circular 13 and circular 15 affected Steele’s ancestors. Despite it all, the people kept their land.
Reach for the Stars; If You Fall in the Clouds - It’s Okay. Mr. Alonzo A. Young, Sr. the last Principal of the Royal School.
Royal’s segregated School closed at the end of the 1968-1969 school year, Mr. Young, Sr. served as Principal for 22 years. Steele recalls some of the fond memories, while attending her beloved community school, of the traditional and fundamental lessons she learned.
Residents, along with Sumter County commissioners, rejected a plan in 1988 to construct a turnpike through Royal. In 2019, state lawmakers approved a bill to construct the Northern Florida Extension, or turnpike project, to build three roads across rural central Florida, including Royal.
