Freedom Park
Freedom Park is the first park in Jacksonville dedicated to the Gullah Geechee Community. The park is located in the Arlington area at the intersection of McCormick and Fort Caroline Roads. The park includes a monument honoring the Cosmo community & PTSD Veterans.
In Memory of the Sapelo Seven
A second monument honors the memory of lives lost on Gullah Geechee Cultural Day at Sapelo Island on October 19, 2024, when a ferry dock collapsed. The following people lost their lives due to the incident which included four Jacksonville residents:
- Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75, Jacksonville, FL
- Cynthia Gibbs, 74, Jacksonville, FL
- Charles L. Houston, 77, Darien, GA
- William Johnson, Jr., 73, Atlanta, GA
- Carlotta McIntosh, 93, Jacksonville, FL
- Isaiah Thomas, 79, Jacksonville, FL
- Queen Welch, 76, Atlanta, GA
Cosmo Community in Arlington
Jacksonville, FL is home to one of the largest populations of Gullah Geechee people in the United States. The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of West and Central Africans who were enslaved on the lower Atlantic coast growing rice, indigo, and sea cotton. The environment combined with the sharing and melding of languages, arts, religions, and foodways resulted in a distinct Gullah Geechee culture in coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Northeast Florida that continues today. In 2006, federal Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor was officially created by Congress through the National Heritage Areas Act of 2006. The Cosmo community in Arlington is included in the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor and is a community founded by freed men in search of a better life following the Emancipation Proclamation.
