September in Central Florida: A New Hue Guide to Black History, Culture, Family and Joy
A New Hue Media Guide for African American Families
September is an invitation to rediscover Central Florida.
For African American families, some of the region's most meaningful experiences are found beyond the theme parks. Black communities built towns here, challenged segregation, created businesses, shaped neighborhoods, preserved art, and established institutions whose stories still deserve to be told.
This month, New Hue Media invites families to experience the place we call home with greater intention. Take the children somewhere new. Visit a historic community. Support a Black-owned business. Dress up for the theater. Spend a morning outdoors. Meet another professional. Sit with an elder and listen.
Black history and Black joy should never be confined to February.
Eatonville: Where Black Independence Took Root
Just outside Orlando sits one of the most significant communities in African American history.
Incorporated in 1887, Eatonville became an extraordinary example of Black self-government in the post-emancipation South. African Americans created a community where they could govern, own property, worship, educate their children, and build institutions on their own terms.
Eatonville is also inseparable from the legacy of writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, whose work preserved Black Southern voices and traditions that might otherwise have disappeared.
Begin at the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts, which celebrates artists of African ancestry and connects Eatonville's historic legacy with contemporary creativity.
Plan your visit through the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts and Preserve Eatonville Community.
Don't simply visit the museum and leave. Look around the community and consider what establishing an independent Black municipality meant only a generation after slavery.
Hue Knew this remarkable history was right here in Central Florida?
Parramore: Walk Into Orlando's Black History
Historic Parramore tells a side of Orlando that visitors to the tourism corridor may never encounter.
At its heart is the Wells'Built Museum of African American History and Culture, housed in the former Wells'Built Hotel at 511 West South Street.
Black physician Dr. William Monroe Wells built the hotel during segregation to accommodate African American travelers who were denied rooms at many white-owned hotels.
The building represents more than lodging. It represents the entrepreneurship and institutions Black communities created when segregation denied them access elsewhere.
Today, the museum preserves Orlando's African American, entertainment, and Civil Rights history.
Plan your visit through the Wells'Built Museum.
Continue through Parramore to Lake Lorna Doone Park, where the Barrier Breakers Monument commemorates a historic interracial Little League game played in Orlando in 1955.
Visit the City of Orlando's Lake Lorna Doone Park page for current information.
For children, the lesson is powerful: history did not happen only in distant cities. It happened on streets they may recognize.
Hannibal Square: Look Beyond Park Avenue
Winter Park is known for Park Avenue, its restaurants, and its museums, but another important story lies nearby.
The Hannibal Square Heritage Center preserves the history of Winter Park's historic African American west side through photographs, oral histories, exhibitions, and community storytelling.
Explore current exhibitions, programs, and visitor information at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center.
If possible, bring multiple generations. Photographs and oral histories can inspire conversations that no textbook can duplicate.
Mims: A Civil Rights Journey Worth Taking
Drive north toward Mims for one of Central Florida's most important Civil Rights experiences.
The Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Memorial Park and Cultural Complex preserves the legacy of two pioneering Florida activists who fought for voting rights, equal pay and justice long before the Civil Rights Movement reached its nationally recognized peak.
On Christmas night in 1951—their 25th wedding anniversary—a bomb exploded beneath their home. Harry died that night, and Harriette died from her injuries nine days later.
Their story reminds us that Florida's Civil Rights history began long before many of the events commonly taught in school.
Families can plan a visit through the Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex and Brevard County Parks and Recreation.
Standing where history occurred transforms it from a chapter in a book into something immediate and human.
Turn September Spending Into Community Investment
Celebrating Black culture should include supporting Black enterprise.
The African American Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida supports businesses throughout Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake, Brevard, and Volusia counties through entrepreneurship programs, advocacy, contracting opportunities, and professional development.
Explore the African American Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida and its Black Business Directory.
Make September intentional. Choose locally owned restaurants, retailers, and professional services. Recommend businesses you value to friends and family.
Supporting Black businesses is not charity. It is commerce, employment, entrepreneurship, and an investment in the economic strength of our communities.
Taste the African Diaspora
Food offers one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to explore culture.
A Parramore history day can include a meal at Nikki's Place, a longtime Orlando destination for Southern and soul food.
Then broaden the family's culinary experience.
At Selam Ethiopian & Eritrean Cuisine, families can discover Ethiopian and Eritrean dishes, injera, and a communal style of dining.
These experiences reinforce an important lesson for children: Black identity is not one country, one language, one cuisine, or one tradition.
The African diaspora is global.
Understand the Place You Call Home
The Orange County Regional History Center in downtown Orlando offers another perspective on how Central Florida became the community it is today.
Explore exhibitions and educational programs and understand how local history changes the way we see familiar streets. Children who know the stories beneath their city become more than residents; they become caretakers of its memory.
Make Art and Theater Part of Family Life
September should include beauty and imagination.
Visit the Orlando Museum of Art and allow children to encounter something unfamiliar without requiring them to understand everything they see.
Then consider an evening of live performance…
The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts presents Broadway productions, concerts, dance, comedy, and theater.
Additional performances can be found through Orlando Shakes, Theater West End in Sanford, and Garden Theatre in Winter Garden.
Let children grow comfortable in theaters and museums. These cultural spaces belong to them too.
Find September's Music and Entertainment
This month, grab your tickets to Disney On Ice, a Wu-Tang concert, and more at the Kia Center.
For festivals, comedy, music, food experiences, and family activities throughout the region, check out the Visit Orlando Events Calendar.
Because September 2026 schedules can change as new events are announced, confirm dates and ticket availability directly with each venue before making plans.
Look beyond whatever happens to be trending. Explore R&B, gospel, jazz, comedy, dance, spoken word, and theater.
Culture should keep surprising us.
Make Room for Black Love
Family life often revolves around children, work, bills, and responsibilities. Relationships deserve attention too.
Reserve one September evening for each other.
Choose a restaurant you've never tried. Attend a concert or play. Walk through downtown after dinner. Take photographs. Put the phones away for part of the evening and enjoy being together.
There is nothing frivolous about protecting a relationship.
Black joy includes romance.
Build Relationships Before You Need Them
Central Florida is filled with African American entrepreneurs, educators, physicians, attorneys, engineers, executives, creatives, and community leaders who may live minutes apart without knowing one another.
The African American Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida is a useful starting point for professional events and business connections.
Effective networking is not about collecting contacts. It is about developing relationships.
Instead of entering a room thinking only, Who can help me?, ask another question:
Who can I help?
Strong communities depend on reciprocity.
Put Wellness on the Family Calendar
September remains warm in Florida, but early mornings offer opportunities to slow down and reconnect with nature.
Wekiwa Springs State Park provides outdoor recreation close to Orlando.
In Volusia County, explore Blue Spring State Park or combine recreation and Florida history at De Leon Springs State Park.
Walk. Swim where permitted. Kayak. Sit beneath a tree. Talk.
Wellness does not always require a gym. Sometimes it begins with giving ourselves permission to slow down.
Create Traditions Through Sports
September also means sports.
Follow Orlando City SC and the Orlando Pride for professional soccer, or check UCF Athletics as college football season gets underway.
Sports have a wonderful way of becoming family history. The game a child attends today may become the story they tell their own children years from now.
Before September Ends, Sit With an Elder
One of our community's greatest historical archives may be sitting at the family dinner table.
Ask an elder where they grew up.
Ask about their first job, their neighborhood, the businesses they remember, the places Black families gathered, and the traditions they want younger generations to preserve.
Ask about the music they loved.
Ask how they met their spouse.
Ask what Central Florida looked like decades ago.
With permission, record the conversation. Identify old photographs and write down names while someone is still there to tell you who everyone is.
We should not wait until the people we love become ancestors before deciding their stories matter.
A September With Meaning
You don’t have to visit every attraction to make September meaningful. Explore a historic neighborhood. Visit a museum. Support a Black-owned business. Try something new. Take your family on a date. Listen to an elder.
The goal isn’t to do it all—it’s to know where you live, experience its culture, and connect with the stories that shaped it.
Hue Knew?
Hue Knew some of Central Florida’s most important Black history is right in our backyard?
From Eatonville and Hannibal Square to Parramore and Mims, history isn’t distant. It surrounds us.
Meaningful travel doesn’t always require a plane ticket. Sometimes, discovery begins on a street we’ve passed a hundred times.
This September, New Hue Media invites African American families to know the history, experience the culture, support the businesses, protect their wellness, and preserve the stories.
Because Black history lives every month. Black businesses need our support every month. And our families deserve to discover the richness of the communities we call home.
Experience where you live. Learn what came before you. Support what’s growing around you.
