Black Crescent City icon to be honored Saturday

Crescent City residents and historians nationwide finally get the chance to celebrate the city’s most prominent civil rights movement leader Saturday morning.

The ceremony at Eva Lyon Park will unveil the signs designating Old Highway 17 from Junction Road to South U.S. 17 as A. Philip Randolph Memorial Highway.

This commemoration has been two years in the making because the Putnam County Board of Commissioners voted to rename that stretch of road after Randolph in March 2020. The coronavirus pandemic, however, put those celebrations on hold until now.

“I’m feeling very excited and very hopeful,” said Angel Duke, a Crescent City resident who spearheaded the efforts to rename the road.

The community is invited to the park, 100 S. Summit St., starting at 11 a.m. to be part of the next chapter in preserving Randolph’s legacy.

A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization member is scheduled to speak, and former state legislator Tony Hill, who won the A. Philip Randolph Award from the Washington, D.C. institute, according to Duke.

She said that members of the University of Florida’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program are also planning to attend the ceremony to capture and preserve local history.

Randolph, who grew up in Crescent City, made history as the man who organized the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech.”

He also served as president of the Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black-led labor union supported by the American Federation of Labor. Randolph spoke out against wage inequality and the unsafe conditions for railroad workers.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Randolph the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the nation.

Efforts to keep Randolph’s accomplishments in the forefront of local history continue today, but some past feats include when Duke opened the A. Philip Randolph Gallery & Interactive Learning, 338 Central Ave., in 2016.

Also that year, Putnam County commissioners and Crescent City officials declared June 18 as A Philip Randolph Day, coinciding with the city’s Juneteenth celebration.

Duke said she is very thankful for everyone who helped preserve Randolph’s memory, such as the county commissioners and members of the A. Philip Randolph committee.

“I am elated that this is finally coming to fruition,” Duke added.

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