Editing Quincy, Florida (section)

==History==
===Early Florida Statehood and Antebellum Years===
[[File:Quincy FL Courthouse05.JPG|thumb|left|Gadsden County Courthouse in Quincy]]
Established in 1828, Quincy is the county seat of Gadsden County, and was named for [[John Quincy Adams]].<ref name="Profile for Quincy, Florida, FL">{{cite web|url= http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=8872|title= Profile for Quincy, Florida, FL|publisher= ePodunk|access-date= July 16, 2016|archive-date= March 4, 2016|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160304002229/http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=8872|url-status= dead}}</ref> It is located {{convert|25|mi}} northwest of [[Tallahassee, Florida|Tallahassee]], the state capital. Quincy's economy was based on agriculture, including farming tomatoes, tobacco, mushrooms, soybeans and other crops.

According to ''The Floridian'' newspaper, in 1840 there were two schools in Quincy, the Quincy Male Academy<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28416631/the_quincy_florida_male_academy/
|title=Quincy Male Academy
|page=1
|newspaper=The Floridian
|location=Tallahassee, Florida
|date=January 18, 1840}}</ref> and the Quincy Female Academy.<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28416854/the_quincy_female_academy/
|newspaper=The Floridian
|location=Tallahassee, Florida
|title=Quincy Female Academy
|page=1
|last=Edwards
|first=R. I., principal
|date=January 18, 1840}}</ref> Joshua Knowles published the ''Quincy Sentinel'' in Quincy from November 1839 until it relocated to Tallahassee and became the ''[[Florida Sentinel]]'' in 1841.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GbAKAAAAIAAJ&q=florida+sentinel+clisby|title=Florida Historical Quarterly|date=March 2, 1942|publisher=Florida Historical Society|via=Google Books}}</ref> The paper began publishing in Tallahassee in February or March 1841 as a successor to Quincy Sentinel.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrAKAAAAIAAJ&q=florida+sentinel+clisby|title=Territorial Florida journalism|first=James Owen|last=Knauss|date=March 2, 1926|publisher=The Florida state historical society|via=Google Books}}</ref>

===American Civil War===
One of the most important anti-secession organizations in Florida leading up to the Civil War was the Constitutional Union Party. The party, while acknowledging the "wrongs" inflicted upon the south by the north, advocated for "pacific, rational, and judicial methods for righting these wrongs." The party held its state convention in Quincy on June 27, 1860.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Reiger |first1=John F. |title=Secession of Florida from the Union - a Minority Decision? |journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly |date=April 1968 |volume=46 |issue=4 |page=358 |url=http://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/ucf%3A22412 |access-date=10 July 2023}}</ref> 
  
[[William Tennent Stockton]], once mayor of Quincy, raised a cavalry company following secession called the Gadsden Dragoons. He was subsequently appointed as captain of the [[1st Florida Cavalry Regiment]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Coddington |first1=Ronald S. |title=Western Theater |journal=Military Images |date=January–February 1993 |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=23–30 |jstor=44032491 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44032491 |access-date=16 February 2023}}</ref>

Florida was a major contributor of beef, salt, and other supplies to the Confederacy. To facilitate the supply chain, the state was divided into five commissary districts under the overall command of Major Pleasant W. White of Quincy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Robert |title=Cow Cavalry: Munnerlyn's Battalion in Florida, 1864-1865 |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |date=1986 |volume=65 |issue=2 |pages=196–214 |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol65/iss2/6/ |jstor=30146741 }}</ref>

===Tobacco===
In 1828, Governor [[William Pope Duval|William P. Duval]] introduced Cuban [[tobacco]] to the territory of Florida. As a result, the culture of shade-grown cigar wrapper tobacco was a dominant factor in the social and economic development of Gadsden County. Tobacco is a native plant of the western hemisphere. Early European explorers discovered [[indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] growing the plant when they set foot on their soil.

In 1829, John Smith migrated to Gadsden County in covered wagons with his family and four related families. Since there was already a resident named John Smith in the community, he became known as John "Virginia" Smith. When Smith ventured southward he brought with him a type of tobacco seed which was used for chewing and pipe smoking. He planted that seed and found that the plants grew vigorously. Because there was no market for tobacco in small quantities, it was twisted together, cured and shared with his friends. He purchased some [[Cuba]]n tobacco seed and planted them with his [[Virginia]] tobacco. Several years passed and the two tobaccos blended.

When the Virginia tobacco was grown in Florida soil, it was much thinner and lighter in color. Smith began saving the seed from the hybridized stalks. From these seeds, a new plant known as "Florida Wrapper" was developed. So began a tobacco industry at a time when the [[Southern United States|South]] was suffering from the low price of [[cotton]].

Growing tobacco continued to be profitable until the beginning of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] in 1861, even when the European markets were no longer available. Of course, during the war and the [[Reconstruction Era]], very little tobacco was grown except for personal use. Those days were tremendously difficult, and recovery was a slow process. The post-war search for a money crop led to the resurgence of the tobacco culture. Through these experiments it was discovered that tobacco which was light in color and silky in texture demanded the highest prices. With more experimentation, shading the plants began. At first, wood slats were used, but these proved too heavy. Then they tried slats draped with cheesecloth to keep the plants from the light. Next came ribbed cheesecloth. Ultimately in 1950, the white cheesecloth was replaced with a treated, longer lasting, yellow cloth that provided perfect shade.

Colonel Henry DuVal, president of the [[Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad]], shipped samples of Gadsden County tobacco to New York for leaf dealers and cigar manufacturers to inspect. Soon representatives of several companies came down from New York to purchase land for growing tobacco. There was such an influx of land purchases that a number of packing houses arose. This continued until 1970 when tobacco companies came under fire and demand diminished. Around 1970, growing tobacco declined substantially in Gadsden. The development of a homogenized cigar wrapper, the ever-increasing cost of production, the subsidizing of the tobacco culture in [[Central America]] by the U.S. government, and the increasing, negative legal climate against the tobacco industry have added to the demise of Gadsden's future in tobacco. The last crop of shade-grown cigar wrapper tobacco was grown in 1977.

Quincy then turned to its other crops, tomato, mushroom and egg farms. This continued until the close of Quincy's mushroom factory and massive layoff of workers at Quincy's tomato farm in 2008. Quincy now turns to its businesses and is attempting to build itself into a business-based district.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/26043| title=Florida Memory - Workers harvesting wrapper tobacco - Quincy, Florida| author=State Library and Archives of Florida| work=Florida Memory}}</ref>

===Race relations===
Quincy was home to Dunbar High School.<ref>{{Cite web| title=Narrative of A. I. Dixie & Samuel Dixie | url=https://www.nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text3/dixieinterviews.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219171314/http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text3/dixieinterviews.pdf | archive-date=2007-12-19}}</ref>{{Relevance inline|discuss=This sentence needs more context. What was the Dunbar High School? What does it have to do with Race Relations?|date=October 2024}} It also had a [[Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia]] Lodge that was attacked, burned, and members murdered by the [[Ku Klux Klan]] reportedly because members were required to pay poll taxes and register to vote.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://news.ucsc.edu/2005/02/642.html | title=New book documents first statewide civil rights movement in Florida }}</ref>

====Lynchings====
In 1929, Will Larkins was accused of an attack on a white 13 year old Quincy school girl, for which he was quickly indicted.<ref>"QUINCY NEGRO IN JAIL HERE" ''Tallahassee Democrat'', November 8, 1929, Fri. • p. 1; "GIRL ATTACKED ON WAY TO HOME" ''The Miami Herald'', November 9, 1929, Sat., p. 3.</ref> As Larkins was being transferred he was taken by a mob of 40 masked men from Sheriff Gregory of Gadsden county,<ref>"LARKINS WAS TAKEN FROM SHERIFF ON WAY TO JAX" ''Pensacola News Journal'', November 10, 1929, Sun. • p. 1.</ref> near [[Madison, Florida|Madison]] and [[Live Oak, Florida|Live Oak]]. When he was kidnapped by the mob he was being taken to the Duval county jail in a series of moves that newspapers claimed were for his safe keeping.<ref>"QUINCY NEGRO IN JAIL HERE" ''Tallahassee Democrat'', November 8, 1929, Fri. • p. 1.</ref> After his capture by the mob Larkins was carried back to Quincy, near the railroad grade crossing, shot to death and hanged with wire,<ref>"NEGRO LYNCHED IN FLORIDA BY MOB" ''Albuquerque Journal'', November 10, 1929, Sun. • p. 1.</ref> his body was then dragged through the street tied to an automobile and burned at the area where the mob thought the accused committed his crime.<ref>"Lynch Negro Charged With Attack on 12 Year Old Girl" ''The Tribune'', Scranton, Pennsylvania, November 11, 1929, Mon., p. 1.</ref> Though Governor [[Doyle E. Carlton|Carlton]] promised an inquiry and investigators were put on the case in late 1929, no mention of Will Larkins, except for the [[NAACP]] lynching lists of 1929, is made again in newspapers of the time. Larkins was the third man lynched in Florida that year.<ref>"Carlton Promies Inquiry" ''The Tampa Tribune'', November 12, 1929, Tue., p. 1.</ref>

In 1941, A. C. Williams was accused of robbery and the attempted rape of a 12-year-old white girl. The account of the details makes the accusation very improbable, but Williams did not live long enough to be tried for the crime. He was kidnapped from jail by a group of white men, and although they both shot him and hanged him, Williams survived. After learning he was alive, the sheriff formed a search party. His family was aware the sheriff had been involved in the lynching, and hid him. Williams needed medical attention and since the hospitals in the Quincy area would not treat a black person, he needed to be transported to [[Florida A&M University]] in Tallahassee. The following day a group of masked men kidnapped him from the ambulance and killed him. His body was dumped on his mother's porch.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hobbs|first1=Tameka Bradley|title="Hitler Is Here": Lynching in Florida during the Era of World War II|url=http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:182219/datastream/PDF/view|access-date=November 30, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hobbs|first1=Tameka|title=Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida|year=2016|publisher=University Press of Florida |isbn=9780813062396}}</ref>

====Resistance to Jim Crow====
In the 1920s, blacks in Quincy including A. I. Dixie repeatedly tried to form political organizations and vote, and protest brutal labor conditions, but were suppressed by violence from whites. Dixie was flogged repeatedly for his efforts. Later, in 1964, Dixie hosted [[Congress of Racial Equality]] student activists, while his daughter Linda organized a sit-in, and Jewell Dixie became the first African American to run for Gadsden County Sheriff.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/2470 |title=African-American Resistance to Jim Crow in the South |first=Paul |last=Ortiz|date=November 30, 2001 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/FHQ-July-1976.pdf |title=Slave Unrest in Florida |first=Ray |last=Granade |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly | date=July 1976 |pages=18–36}}</ref>

===All American City===
In 1996, Quincy was recognized as an All American City.<ref>{{Cite web| url=http://www.allamericacityaward.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/1Winners-1949-2012.pdf | title=All-America Cities 1949-2012 | access-date=November 1, 2013 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104121143/http://www.allamericacityaward.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/1Winners-1949-2012.pdf | archive-date=November 4, 2013}}</ref>