Old City Cemetery: an excerpt from the upcoming Haunts & Hollows: Florida Coast.
Established as Jacksonville’s first community burial ground, Old City Cemetery gave final rest to thousands of early residents, including businessmen, socialites, soldiers, and at least one former Florida governor. The original property was donated to the city by Captain & Mrs. Charles Willey in 1852. Almost 20 years later, the plot was expanded by two acres. This new plot was known as the Duval Colored Cemetery or the Freedmen’s Cemetery and soon became the favored resting place for many of the region’s prominent African-American families.
One of the community’s early religious leaders can be found here, interred in a simple white mausoleum deep in the property. Laura Adorkor Kofi was born in Ghana in the early 1890s. After receiving a vision from God to help Africans across the Atlantic, she emigrated to the United States in 1917. For ten years she traveled around the nation preaching to crowds about the importance of honoring their African heritage. By 1927, she had founded the African Universal Church using the honorific Warrior Mother of Africa’s Warriors of the Most High God or simply Mother Kofi.
On March 8, 1928, Mother Kofi was preaching to a congregation in Miami. Maxwell Cook, a Jamaican-born follower of vocal Kofi critic Marcus Garvey, allegedly approached the pulpit and fired once, striking her in the head. Mother Kofi died at the scene, the crowd beat Maxwell to death before he could flee.
Her body was put on display for several months while local leaders attempted to contact Mother Kofi’s family in Ghana. Ultimately, they decided to inter her in Old City Cemetery, and a mausoleum was erected in her honor.
