Pensacola mayor proclaims March 20 as John Sunday Day

Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson on Thursday proclaimed March 20 as John Sunday Day, recognizing the legacy and lasting impact of one of Pensacola’s most important African-American historical figures.

Sunday was born in Escambia County on March 20, 1838, the son of an enslaved woman named Jinny and John Sunday, her common-law husband who legally owned her. After serving with distinction in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, Sunday returned to Pensacola and became one of the first African-Americans to serve in the Florida Legislature and on the Pensacola City Council. He also built a thriving construction business, building hundreds of houses throughout Pensacola, some of which are still standing today. When Jim Crow laws forced black businesses out of downtown Pensacola, Sunday helped establish and build up the Belmont-Devilliers area as a center for black commerce.

“John Sunday is as big a part of Pensacola’s story as any other historic figure and he deserves his place alongside figures like Tristan de Luna and Andrew Jackson,” said Teníadé Broughton, the president of the John Sunday Society.

The society — originally formed in 2016 in an unsuccessful bid to save Sunday’s historic 1901 house in downtown Pensacola — was relaunched last month with a broader mission to raise awareness of Pensacola’s diverse history and advocate for the preservation of Pensacola’s historic places and spaces.

In his proclamation, Mayor Robinson recognized the “central role” that black citizens have played in Pensacola’s development and success since its earliest days.

Robinson presented his proclamation at Thursday’s meeting of the Pensacola City Council, the same body of which Sunday was a member during the late 1870s and early 1880s. Sunday’s great-great-granddaughter Pearl Perkins, as well as John Sunday Society president Teníadé Broughton and vice president Teresa Hill were on hand for the presentation.