A group of concerned citizens wants to turn a house back into a home.

The Ella Jordan Home, once a gathering place for a host of community activities in the early 1900s near the Belmont-DeVilliers neighborhood, has fallen to disrepair as a result of neglect and hurricane damage.

The plan is to preserve the legacy and life of Ella Jordan by restoring the house to its elegance and importance in the historic neighborhood.

A “Campaign to Save the Historical Ella Jordan Home” will be hosted at 5 p.m. Saturday at Booker T. Washington High School’s Theodore Auditorium, 6000 College Parkway.

Keynote speaker is Faya Ora Rose Toure, a Harvard-educated civil rights activist and litigation attorney in Selma, Ala.

Toure, formerly named Rose Sanders, was the first African-American female judge in Alabama. She was part of the winning team in a civil rights case that led to a billion dollars in damages awarded to black farmers by the U.S Department of Agriculture, one of the largest civil rights cases in history.

Also a songwriter, playwright and education activist, Toure is an ideal person to raise awareness and bring attention to the efforts to save the Ella Jordan Home.

Jordan, the first president of Pensacola Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, owned the house until she died in 1948.

Federation members bought the house, on the corner of LaRua and C streets, in 1959 and named it after Jordan. It became a gathering spot for social and educational activities for the African-American community in the what's commonly called today the Westside Garden District.

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan nearly destroyed the dilapidated remains of the historic house.

Once a neighborhood cornerstone, the house is barely standing and in desperate need of repair and restoration. Windows and doors are boarded. The heavily damaged roof is covered with a blue tarp.

Members of the community, along with Mother Wit Institute, a nonprofit group dedicated to educating young people and preserving African-American history, have joined together to save revitalize the landmark.

Georgia Blackmon, founding member of Mother Wit Institute, said it would be a shame to lose this significant piece of Pensacola history.

Blackmon said activities at the Jordan Home focused on important issues such as health and wellness, economics, education and tutoring.

“It’s worth saving because of what she did in the 1900s through providing and teaching life skills,” Blackmon said. “We need to keep her legacy alive for the next generation and even the unborn.”

For more info, call 438-4882.

[progresspromise]