“Can you imagine being born a slave in Florida and living in a beautiful Second Empire mansion in New Jersey?” - asked Spring. “It's an extraordinary story of American history. I think what remains of the house could easily be restored to a sufficient level that the story could be told in an incredibly effective way” (Shockley). Thomas T. Fortune was an important journalist in the history of America, born into slavery in the state of Florida. He was a cultured man and one of the most influential African American journalists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Thomas T. Fortune played an important role in the civil rights movement in America and deserves to be commemorated in an effort to remind future generations of the leaders who fought for the rights they have today. Fortune's house in Red Bank, New Jersey was listed as a historic landmark in 1976, currently endangered and empty. There is currently an ongoing struggle to keep his house and turn it into a cultural museum or demolish it to construct other various buildings for the city. Thomas T. Fortune was born October 3, 1856, and died June 2, 1928. “T. Thomas Fortune was born a slave in Marianna, Florida, October 3, 1856, and was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863” (PBS). Fortunately, Fortune was able to receive an education as a child, unlike most freedmen. “He attended a Freedmen's Bureau school taught by two Union soldiers at an African-American church in Marianna and also worked in the offices of a community weekly newspaper, where he learned to “ cane,” a skill that provided him with the “rudiments of the trade which determined his life’s work” (Carle 1487). Thomas T. Fortune was one of the few African American men to be educated.... .. half of sheet ......y 2014..Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA .Digital Image May 3, 2014.Mount, Guy BUILDING MULTIRACIAL FORTUNES: BLACK IDENTITY, MASCULINITY, AND AUTHENTICITY THROUGH THE BODY OF T . THOMAS FORTUNE, 1883-1907 Thesis, San Diego State University, 2011. Np: np, nd Print.PBS, nd Web 03 May 2014.Shockley, Linda Journalist T. Thomas Fortune." BlackPressUSA. Np, 10 July 2013. Web. 03 May 2014."T. Thomas Fortune House - PAGE." Nationallandmarksalliance. Np, nd Web. 03 May 2014. Waldman, Amy. The presentation:. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Print.Zipprich, Ed. “T. Thomas Fortune House.” Preservation New Jersey. Np, August 2011. Web. 03 May 2014.