Dakota Avenue

Last week I was talking to my father about his childhood growing up in Lakeland, Florida, and he mentioned that he used to live on a street called Dakota. He wasn't sure if it was Dakota Street or Avenue so I pulled out the trusted laptop and let my fingers do the searching. After a few google seconds, I found an article about historic Lakeland and a specific traditionally African-American locale called "Black Bottom". Lakeland's Black Bottom stretched for six square miles from west to north Lakeland. Bordered by West 10th Street, Amos Avenue, West Crawford Street and Dakota Avenue (now known as MLK) Black Bottom was the center of Black Lakeland and my father's childhood home sat on the corner of its main street. Legend has that it was called Black Bottom because after electricity came to Polk County's largest city, the northwestern section of the city was still curiously dark. With only three streets lights across the six mile area, most streets fell dark with each day's setting sun and the residents tagged it "Black Bottom".

Both pages are 8 x 8 (my new favorite size) and created using BasicGrey's "Granola" papers and following a Becky Fleck 12 x 12 sketch.

Q