It was one of South’s earliest free Black towns. Now it fights a highway.
“Right here!” Beverly Steele exclaims as she points to the floor beneath her chair in Royal’s small community center. The town is home to one of Florida’s oldest African American communities. She then points to the ceiling and adds, “My building would be under the loop.”
The building, a former cafeteria, is the last relic of Royal’s segregated school. It was restored after the unincorporated community of 1,200 earned historical recognition from the state in 2010.
The loop is the Northern Florida Extension – a turnpike construction project authorized under a 2019 bill approved by state lawmakers to construct three new toll roads. The bill was repealed, but the goal of paving through rural central Florida was revived last year, when lawmakers commissioned a study of potential turnpike extension routes.
Royal is in the proposed path. Residents say churches, homes, and a cemetery containing the remains of formerly enslaved people could all be impacted.
The community learned of the proposal from the turnpike, but that’s just one of the strategies they’re trying in an all-out effort to keep their neighborhood intact. In the face of racial hostility in the past, silence kept the community alive. But this time, residents are giving voice to their determination, educating the public about Royal’s history and its role in the development of Black American society.
