Sunday, April 5, 2009

Civil Rights

Civil Rights: Introduction
Civil Rights are defined as the rights citizens are entitled to from their government. Citizens are guaranteed equal protection to all laws, regardless of race, and regardless of state laws, under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. All citizens are guaranteed the freedom from discrimination, the use of any unreasonable and unjust criterion of exclusion.
Civil Rights: The Case of Florida

Black Codes
  • Following the defeat of the Confederacy, Florida was left with no viable legal or political system in place. Appointed to create a new state Constitution and government, the Florida General Assembly was deeply concerned with the regulation of former slaves. Newly freed blacks could no longer be controlled or punished by an owner, so new laws and regulations were put into effect.
  • The new laws made loitering, vagrancy and other trivial transgressions an offense punishable by up to one year at hard labor.
  • They provided no means of funding either for the creation of, or support for, schools for black children. The laws disenfranchised black men from voting.
  • Lastly, other laws made it illegal for blacks to serve on juries or to sue whites.
  • In all, they managed to subjugate the black population and effectively return Florida to its pre-war roles of servant and master.
Poll Taxes

  • By 1884, the Bourbon Democrats had begun to seize control of the political reins in Florida. The Constitution of 1885 would make it possible to begin the legal disenfranchisement of blacks.
  • In 1889, the Florida legislature complied and passed the poll tax laws.
  • These laws put in place a tax on any black man voting, a tax to "pay for education." They also allowed for multiple ballots in multiple locations, making the voting for all or any of the Republican candidates next to impossible.
  • While the multiple ballots would be replaced in 1893, the poll tax would remain in effect until 1937.

Militia/Patriot Groups
  • The Southern Poverty Law Center identified 217 "Patriot" groups that were active in 1999. Of these groups, 68 were militias, four were "common-law courts" and the remainder fit into a variety of categories such as publishers, ministries, citizens’ groups and others.
  • Generally, Patriot groups define themselves as opposed to the "New World Order" or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines.
  • The listing here does not imply that the groups themselves advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities or are racist.
  • The list was compiled from field reports, Patriot publications, the Internet, law enforcement sources and news reports.
Militia or Patriot Groups as Reported by the Florida Poverty Law Center Constitutional
  1. Guardians of America, Boca Raton
  2. Constitution Party, Brevard County
  3. Citizens for Better Government, Gainesville
  4. Constitution Party, Pinellas County
  5. People for Sovereignty and Restoration, Pompano Bch.
  6. Southeastern States Alliance, St. Petersburg
  7. Confederate States of America/Omega Group One, Tallahassee
  8. Greater Ministries International, Tampa
  9. Militia of Florida, West Palm Beach

Click HERE to go to the Southern Poverty Law Center website


The Klu Klux Klan
  • During Reconstruction, many white Floridians resented the military presence in Florida.
  • They blamed the blacks and deeply resented their newly protected privileges. Unable to find legal recourse, some whites banded together in vigilante groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
  • Often overlooked in Florida, the Klan harassed and intimidated black men and women throughout the state, particularly in the northern regions.
  • Lynching, cross burnings, raids and armed assaults during election days served to effectively deter many blacks from voting.
  • Following the passage of the new State Constitution and poll tax laws in the 1880s and '90s, often referred to as the “Jim Crow Laws” the activities of the Klan subsided.
  • However, World War I would bring to the forefront civil rights and voting issues.
  • When women won the right to vote in 1920, many black women and men would once again attempt to exercise their rights.
  • By the early 1920s, the Klan was once more a serious threat to blacks.
  • By the early 1950s, lynching, murders, assaults and vandalism against innocent blacks were again marring race relations in Florida.
  • Today, racist beliefs are channeled through groups who may participate in the advancement of hate crimes.

Rosewood

  • Until January 1923, Rosewood, a small town near Cedar Key in western Levy County, was home to about 350 African-American Floridians.
  • That month, this small town became what the late Governor Chiles described as "a shadow of shame which fell across the state of Florida."

Click on the picture to read about the Rosewood incident.


The 1960s

Civil Rights activity in Florida rose in the 1960s, as did the black voting percentage, thanks in part to civil rights activists such as Harry T. Moore and C.K. Steele.

To read more about these men, click on their names.

Civil Rights: Education

Two Supreme Court cases have dominated the concepts of segregation and integration in not only Florida's educational system, but across the nation.

  • 1896: Plessy v.Ferguson: Created the doctrine of "Separate but equal," that public accommodations could be segregated by race and still be equal.
  • 1954: Brown v. Board of Education: Struck down the "separate but equal” doctrine as fundamentally unequal. This case eliminated state power to use race as a criterion of discrimination in law and provided the national government with the power to intervene by exercising strict regulatory policies against discriminatory actions." (Ginsburg, Lowi, & Weir; 2001, p. 201.)


Florida responded by several means: One odd example of Florida's response to the 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education was to create a separate system of higher education for black Floridians. In 1955, the Florida Community College Council established a separate system of two-year colleges. Twelve community colleges were created soley for African-American students. These colleges (see following list) continued in existence until the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation in public education.

















(For more information, consult The Magnificent Twelve: Florida's Black Junior Colleges, Walter L. Smith, 1994.)
One Florida Initiative
  • In November of 1999, Governor Jeb Bush announced "One Florida" a controversial plan to change how Florida contends with affirmative action.
  • The photo to the right, taken by the Tallahassee Democrat in March 2000, depicts the 25,000 to 80,000 participants who marched to the Capitol in Tallahassee in protest to the One Florida Initiative.
  • There was much dissent and protest in response to the plan, and a number of websites were developed opposing the plan. Here are just three of them:
  1. http://www.whoseflorida.com/one_florida.htm
  2. http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/pages/florida.html
  3. http://www.afrocubaweb.com/news/oneflorida.htm
In the ten years since Governor Bush's Plan was implemented, there has been much dialogue on this issue as well as many changes for the better. What began as the "One Florida" Initiative now falls under the Department of Management Services and is now know as the "Office of Supplier Diversity" or OSD. Click on the following link to visit the website.

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