Category Florida History
Flashback Friday: The Beatles First Florida Visit
The Beatles – The First U.S. Visit To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Beatles first visit to the US, Apple Corps released a DVD of the the band’s first US visit in February 1964. Today, ten years later we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Beatles arrival in New York. Days later the band […]
Thursday Bookshelf: Civil Rights, Lyndon Johnson, MLK Jr. and Congress
Review of When Freedom Would Triumph: The Civil Rights Struggle in Congress, 1954-1968 and Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America While the History of Florida is somewhat different from the rest of the south in the 1960s thanks largely to the efforts in the 1950s of one man, […]
Thursday Bookshelf: The Doghouse Democrats – Bob Graham and Buddy MacKay
A look at How Florida Happened: The Political Education of Buddy MacKay (Florida Government and Politics) and Quiet Passion: A Biography of Bob Graham Once upon a time Florida’s Legislature was an effective body and the State House was largely progressive. Florida moved vastly ahead of other southeastern states thanks to the leadership and vision of those […]
Obituary: Patrick Smith Author of “A Land Remembered”
No book describes old Florida and the transformation to modern state quite like A Land Remembered. I was saddened to learn this afternoon of the passing of Patrick Smith, the author of the iconic work of historical fiction. Those who have not read Smith’s ,master work should if they are to truly understand the peninsula’s […]
310th Anniversary of the Apalachee Massacre – a Decisive Event in Florida History
One of the most significant and gruesome events in Florida’s Colonial History took place 310 years ago this weekend. The Battle of Ayubale took place slightly north of present day Tallahassee and it was a decisive event in which Florida under Bourbon Spanish rule (The War of Spanish Succession was taking place at the time between […]
Thursday Bookshelf: The Golden Era of Florida Politics, the 1970s
Today we look at the 1970s and two brilliant books about the era in Florida politics. Senator Robert McKnight’s The Golden Years… The Florida Legislature, ’70s and ’80s , and Martin Dyckman’s Reubin O’D. Askew and the Golden Age of Florida Politics (Florida Government and Politics). The 1970s were a glory era in Florida politics as the fast […]
Flashback Friday – Martin Luther King Jr. and St Augustine: Changing Florida
Due to the MLK Jr. Birthday Holiday, we are re-running a piece we originally published April 4th 2013 to coincide with the 45th anniversary of MLS Jr.’s death. We have added some additional material and context to the original piece. —– Today is the 45th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and this week […]
Thursday Bookshelf: Florida Politics at the end of the Jim Crow Era
If you want to gain any sort of understanding of how Florida shifted from rural deep south state in the 1920s and 1930s towards urban toward enlightened mega-state in the 1970s two must read classic books about southern politics are required. First is V.O. Key Jr’s classic Southern Politics: In State and Nation, written back in 1949 […]
Rise and Fall of the Lieutenant Governor in Florida
The last few weeks of political discourse in Florida, I must say have amused me. First we had many a Democratic activist making an issue about the failure of Governor Rick Scott picking a Lieutenant Governor after 10 months of the post being vacant. That was followed up by the Governor picking someone for the […]
2014: 200th Anniversary of the American Victory at the Battle of Pensacola
Two hundred years ago this November an important battle in American History, which held ensure the success of General Andrew Jackson’s campaign against the British on the Gulf Coast took place in Florida. This campaign culminated in the Battle of New Orleans, arguably the greatest victory in American military history. In 1814, Pensacola and Florida […]
The Florida Squeeze 