The Importance of St. Augustine; and School for Kids Who've Been Suspended from School wqcs.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wqcs.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
According to historian and filmmaker Derek Boyd Hankerson, if the rural post office was the unofficial city hall, its postmaster was the town s unofficial mayor. In a lot of these small towns, the postmaster would be the only representative of the federal government people would ever see, Hankerson said.
Hankerson is well-acquanted with the in and outs of government. In addition to making films, he has worked for Republican lawmakers and politicians since he was 18; he worked on the campaign staff of both Bush presidents and served as former President Donald Trump s Northeast Florida campaign regional director in 2016.
A long line of service
Treasure Coast nonprofits dig into local history to celebrate Black History Month Lamaur Stancil, Treasure Coast Newspapers
Much of the national attention for Black History Month goes to cities in Alabama or Oklahoma, the sites of major events in the civil rights movement.
On the Treasure Coast, residents are looking there too, but also locally as they celebrate Black pioneers who entered the swampland before it was a state, worshipped in Vero Beach and sold paintings along Old Dixie Highway throughout South Florida. I go to the Gomez Pioneer Cemetery in Hobe Sound and look at the years these people were born, said Martin County history enthusiast Lloyd Jones. You see dates from the 1800s, and I try to imagine what life was like for them and I want to investigate why they came to South Florida, well before there was a tourism industry here.
Guest: I love the new Castillo de San Marcos stamp
Derek Boyd Hankerson
St. Augustine
I recently learned that the United States Postal Service issued a new stamp featuring a popular historic attraction in our town.
If you have not seen it, the new postage stamp immortalizes the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument.
In the early 1900’s, Republican President William Howard Taft appointed my great grandfather to serve as the first negro postmaster of Armstrong in St Johns County, Florida.
I am thrilled to have grown up here as part of the family of Rev. Joseph Henry Hankerson. I was taught to value education, Christianity, and both military and community service.