Pleasant City, West Palm Beach

Pleasant City, a neighborhood of West Palm Beach, Florida, is the oldest African-American community in Palm Beach County. The first black settlers came to a place called the Styx—later owned by white millionaires who then rented their backyards to black workers—to work on the railroad and Henry Flagler’s hotel and mansion. Forced out when the land became valuable, the blacks purchased land and settled Pleasant City. Pleasant City was marketed as a “High Class Colored Subdivision” in 1913, and many of the pioneers still have descendants in the area today.