On May 8 of each year, the city of Pensacola pays homage to Spain’s Bernardo de Galvez — who led a multi-cultural army that defeated the British in the Battle of Pensacola in 1781. But with the coronavirus and wildfires in the region, WUWF’s Dave Dunwoody reports the day kind of flew under the radar.
“We didn’t get the chance to say it on Friday, Galvez Day, so we did have a chance to celebrate it,” said Mayor Grover Robinson. “We typically have a reenactment [and] some things we didn’t get a chance to do over at the [Galvez] statue on Palafox.”
In his weekly virtual news conference Monday, the mayor said they spoke with several people in Spain via Zoom. In light of the coronavirus outbreak, part of that message was: we’ll see you here in 2021.
“We’re very proud of our Colonial history and our Spanish history,” Robinson said. “I think we’re all shooting for next year, and they’re going to try to come back over. I said to them we’d celebrate 240 years of Galvez and 200 years of Florida coming over from Spain to the United States.”
Part of city’s 450th anniversary celebration in 2009 was a reenactment of the Battle of Pensacola. Here is the original report from WUWF News. (Click "listen" button above).