This National Negro Blue Book application from 1926 was submitted by Rosa G. Holmes Walker, a Black funeral home director and business woman in Jacksonville, FL who was active during the early twentieth century. Her collection, which is housed at the University of North Florida, largely consists of a range of business-related documents, including death certificates, removal and burial permits, funeral home bills and correspondence, ledgers, and receipts. Also included are real estate correspondence and materials from her relatives from St. Augustine, FL, and South Carolina. Significantly, this collection documents the activities of a successful Black businesswoman flourishing in early twentieth century Northeast Florida, and it complements several others—such as the Eartha M. M. White collection and the Rodney Lawrence Hurst collection—that chronicle the experiences of Jacksonville’s African American community during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. You can view more of Walker’s collection at https://digitalcommons.uf.edu/rghw/

Submitted by: Allison Mason, University of North Florida