THE ELLA L. JORDAN HOME

Decades of meaningful social, educational, and cultural activities for Pensacola’s Black community took place in this home. The Waters family, White cattle farmers, built this single-story Queen Anne cottage with coastal influences around 1890. As Pensacola grew in the early 1900s, it absorbed this rural farmland. The city instituted segregation laws that made this area one of the few places where Black residents could own businesses. The Belmont-Devillers neighborhood became a thriving hub for Pensacola’s Black community. In 1939, the Pensacola Federation of Colored Women’s Club purchased the house and named it for the woman who founded the organization a decade before. The Ella L. Jordan Home hosted many social activities in the Black community throughout the following decades, including wedding receptions, teas, and Mardi Gras parties. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan badly damaged the Ella L. Jordan Home. It was subsequently condemned and set to be torn down by the city. Local historian and activist, Georgia Blackmon and her husband, Johnny, led the effort to save the home. In 2020, the construction and renovations were completed, and it was reopened as a community center and African American history museum.