{"id":41527,"date":"2025-07-05T19:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T19:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/41527\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T19:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T19:44:08","slug":"norman-studios-a-prominent-part-of-jacksonvilles-film-history-will-celebrate-its-2nd-anniversary-in-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/41527\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman Studios, a prominent part of Jacksonville\u2019s film history, will celebrate its 2nd anniversary in August"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Norman Studios is known as one of the first studios in the nation to pioneer films that starred African American actors in positive roles. Next month, it will be celebrating two years being open.<\/p>\n

Norman Studios, located on Arlington Road, has free-admission tours on the first and third Saturdays of every month from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

Jim Kerkhoff, a volunteer at Norman Studios, talked about Richard Norman.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe worked here in silent films from about 1924 through the end of the Silent era,\u201d Kerkhoff said.<\/p>\n

“The Flying Ace” one of the silent films produced by Norman Studios. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Norman was a white filmmaker who in 1916, was one of the pioneers to produce films showcasing Black people in dignified roles. <\/p>\n

Kerkoff said the museum averages about 20 to 25 visitors every open house. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re surprised,\u201d Kerkhoff said. \u201cThey really are surprised and really it\u2019s an interesting facet of Jacksonville\u2019s background.\u201d<\/p>\n

The history really speaks for itself when you walk through the museum into rooms like this that really solidify Jacksonville in our nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Someone taking the tour at Norman Studios. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother thought it would help if I could take dancing lessons, and this is one of the few studios that were here,\u201d Jeanne Middleton, another volunteer at the studio, said.<\/p>\n

Middleton was born and raised in Arlington and came here for the dancing lessons, which costed a dollar per lesson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how I really got to know Richard, because he not only came out to all of our recitals. Our recitals started at Landon High School,\u201d Middleton said.<\/p>\n

“The Green Eyed Monster” one of the films produced by Norman Studios. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

She said that she\u2019s proud that citizens can learn about Jacksonville\u2019s film history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the history that we\u2019ve been promoting has been about the making of the race films that Richard did,\u201d Middleton said. \u201cIt\u2019s building that we have the history in Arlington that we need to be proud of and have the citizens know that this happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next free tour will be on July 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Norman Studios is known as one of the first studios in the nation to pioneer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,8314,3188,723,7310,32803,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-41527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-duval-county","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-norman-studios","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114802344859536602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}