Special Issue: Black History Month Reading for Florida
Be sure to read before Trump makes illegal!
Today marks the beginning of Black History Month in America. It also comes as both America and Florida are in the hands of racist authoritarians. As both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis try to scrub minority communities from education materials and formal declarations, its more important than ever to not let them erase the real history of our nation’s past.
And while Donald may not want to acknowledge Black History Month, I sure as hell do. For this first day, I wanted to consolidate into one article several pieces I’ve written over the years about Black civil rights in Florida. While most attention to Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement is directed at other states; namely places like Alabama or Mississippi, Florida has a rich and important history. At the time of the Civil War, Florida was around 45% Black; owed to the vast array of slave plantations in North Florida. The history after the end of the war played out similar to many southern states. I have documented several of events in the articles below.
Florida’s Black Political History
These articles I am arranging in chronological order, though from the numbering you will notice I didn’t write these in order.
Issue #109 focused on the period right after the end of the Civil War. Like much of the south, Florida saw a period of reconstruction, with newly-freed slaves gaining voting and civil rights. This piece goes into the reconstruction efforts and how white carpetbaggers aimed to suppress full black political power, rather just using votes to secure their own victories. It follows with the collapse of the reconstruction governments and the rise of Jim Crow in Florida.
Like the rest of the South, the rise of Jim Crow meant the end to Black voting rights. Elections in Florida would become all-white affairs, with a poll tax and the establishment of the all-white Democratic Primary. Jim Crow would persist in Florida through the post WWII era.
Issue #188 responds to Black Republican Congressman Byron Donalds claiming that Black families had it good under Jim Crow. I took him to task in this article, which highlights the obvious ways he is wrong and discusses the emerging rise of Democratic support among Black voters.
Black voters began to leave the Republican Party around the time of FDR. This was caused not only by his administration beginning efforts to make inroads with the community, but the further movement of Republicans away from Civil Rights. Herbert Hoover was notably part of the “lily-white movement” which aimed to abandon all Black issues and win over southern states. The movement to Democrats would quicken with Harry Truman and cement with LBJ.
While Florida was firmly in Jim Crow, it was not as repressive as much of the deep south. Thanks to this, efforts to register Black voters were able to really ramp up in the late 1940s. Issue #155 covers this period. After the whites-only primary was struck down in the courts, Harry Moore and Harriette Moore and the NAACP began to registered voters in Florida. Over just a few years, the effort registered nearly 100,000 Black voters.
That article delves into the county-level gains and talks about which counties were hostile to such efforts. At the time Florida was very much a county-by-county dynamic on civil rights. Harry and Harriette were tragically killed by the KKK in 1951.
As Issue #120 covers, where the Moores began, future activists continued. Florida saw increased Black registration efforts through the 1950s and 1960s, even before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed. A massive registration drive in 1964 ensured LBJ’s narrow in Florida that year. Florida was not as hostile to registration as places like Alabama or Mississippi. There was at least no formal state opposition - with county level politics driving intimidation.
The passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was critical for several rural counties. Places like Liberty County had no Black registered voters before 1965. Other counties were already freely letting Black voters register. That article delves into more details on the different counties and the effects of the VRA.
Issue #191, which I posted last year as Kamala Harris was becoming the Democratic nominee, covers a key race in 1972 in Florida. That year, the Democratic Presidential Primary saw Shirley Chisholm, Americans’ first Black female Congresswoman, make a run for the Presidential nomination. This article covers her efforts in the Florida Primary, which saw her face off against a long list of names - including the infamous George Wallace.
While Chisholm would not win, the results would show a clear base of support among Black voters.
Local Politics
I’ve also written articles on Black representation in local government. Several of you know that in 2024 I began a series tracking the rise of Black political power in Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. What is today a very racially liberal city was once a classic southern small town. I am working on a series that tracks Tallahassee from the 1950s and into the 1990s - highlight how its racial politics as changed. The first issue can be seen below - it covers the first time a Black man ran for city council sense reconstruction. The year was 1957.
That election came amid the Tallahassee bus boycotts. Rev King Solomon Dupont would lose to segregationist David Atkinson. The article delves into the racial politics of Tallahassee at the time. The election saw a spike in Black turnout, but ultimately saw a very racially polarized vote. Nonetheless, the effort kicked off a trend of Black candidates and ultimately election victories.
You can see all the issues here - with the series ongoing.
Meanwhile, just to the west of Tallahassee sits Liberty County. This rural white county has a long history of Klan violence and Black repression. I wrote about the push to finally get a Black county commissioner elected. This was a county with no Black registered voters until the VRA.
This article deals with the racial discrimination histories, lawsuits over single-member districts, and the politics among the old “Dixiecrats” that once ruled North Florida.
Looking Ahead
Everything sucks nationwide and in Florida right now. However, I am going to use February to keep talking about important moments in Black history - namely from an election perspective. On Twitter and Bluesky I am going to be posting maps and stories about items related to Black political power and/or elections. I am also working on a bigger article for later this month, which will look at the Great Migration in Florida; which saw tens of thousands of Black Floridians leave Jim Crow to go to the northern states. That will be out later this month. I teased that topic in my issue from January 19th, which covered how the Black Churches of Harlem inspired NAZI dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
That piece covers how Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran Pastor, was initially raised in the nationalism of his home country. His experience in Harlem in 1930, part of a fellowship he signed up for, sparked a new vision for him on the church responding to oppression. He would take those lessons back to Germany to fight against the Reich.
Black history in America is critically important and it doesn’t matter what that jackass in the White House thinks, I am going to keep talking about it.