Category Florida History
Flashback Friday – When Racial Terror Struck Florida and how Charlie Crist Played Hero
Attorney General Crist in 2005 discussing the case One of the darkest episodes in Florida’s history, the murder of NAACP leader Harry T. Moore. In 1951 when Moore was murdered in Mims, local Democrats in Lake, Orange and Brevard County were not only segregationists but were sympathetic to hoodlums in the Ku Klux Klan. Even […]
Thursday Bookshelf : Dream State
I get very self conscious when people make fun of Florida – the exception to that general rule of mine is when Floridians especially those from long-time Florida families mock our state. Diane Roberts formerly of the St Pete Times, FSU Professor and longtime NPR commentator. Roberts family has lived in Florida since the 18th […]
Flashback Friday: The Legislature in 1996
Yesterday, while doing some spring cleaning (ie. throwing things out) I stumbled upon the 1996 edition of the always handy “Know Your Legislators” legislative directory put out each year by Associated Industries of Florida. This happens to be the very last session the Democrats had a majority in the House. The spread in the Senate […]
1935 Labor Day Hurricane now classified as strongest ever to hit the US
The National Hurricane Center has reclassified the 1935 Keys Labor Day Storm, one of the greatest tragedies in Florida’s History as the strongest storm to ever hit the US mainland. One of the great tragedies of the Labor Day storm was the death of hundreds of World War I veterans who were building the Overseas […]
The Rise of the Republican Party of Florida & the Decline of the Middle-Class
Florida Governor Rick Scott has claimed that the Florida economy is doing better than the rest of the nation and business publications, like Florida Trend, have proclaimed, “Florida is back!” The headlines sound great but the facts tell another story. A recent study by Florida International University’s Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy found […]
Flashback Friday: Florida, Fair Housing and the Civil Rights Act of 1968
This week, in 1968 following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, a stalled civil rights measure made its way to the House floor. Essentially a fair housing measure the act was much more controversial nationally than the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the entire Florida Delegation […]
TFS Announces 2014 Election Project and Google Hangout Plan
Having recently completed Blue With Envy: My American Journey with Manchester City and been offered the opportunity to write another book (this time in monograph form) on a historical topic, I have developed a longer-form writing and research bug which I would like to translate to Florida-related subjects. With this in mind The Florida Squeeze has decided […]
Flashback Friday: Reagan Tax Cuts and Florida
Perhaps no piece of legislation has been more damaging to the ideal of the American dream than Ronald Reagan’s irresponsible tax cuts passed in 1981. These tax cuts sent the US economy into a deep recession and allowed Reagan to build up a bigger Federal deficit than the every previous President combined. Much of the […]
Flashback Friday: Tracking Florida’s Presidential drift towards the Democrats
Today let’s compare a county break down the 1996 Presidential Race where Bill Clinton as an incumbent won the state overwhelmingly (keep in mind Clinton lost Florida in 1992 by under two points) to Barack Obama’s three point win 2008. These were the two best results by Democrats in Florida since Harry Truman’s 1948 victory. […]
Flashback Friday: Racial Backlash among Democrats and 1968 Presidential and US Senate Election in Florida
In 1968, Alabama’s Democratic former Governor George Wallace who had become a national figure with his “stand in the schoolhouse door” ran for President on the ticket of the “American Independent Party.” The candidacy despite coded words like “crime,” “law breakers,” and “patriotism” was about one thing- race. Wallace had been a populist earlier in […]
The Florida Squeeze 