Old South, New South, or Down South

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Old South, New South, or Down South?: Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement is a book full of many insightful accounts of the history of our so called Sunshine State, Florida meant to expose the dirt that is otherwise brushed under the carpet by our government. It is meant to expose the stories of racial discrimination and violence that went on in Florida beginning in the 1950s and how difficult it has been for African Americans to live a comfortable life. I believe that this book did a good job of offering a lot of information and history while “presenting new visions of Florida’s racial past and encourages new ideas about what civil rights meant to constituencies around the state and possible the nation.” In key Jr’s study he claimed that, based on its demographics and geographic characteristics it was found to be “scarcely part of the south” while only emitting a “faint tropical rebel yell” for the most part it was “a world of its own” and I don’t agree with this one bit. After the Brown case, Florida grasped onto the Old South which involved segregation and its ugly images of African Americas, trying to shun them away from the beaches, schools, restaurants and auditoriums. They were not only separated but treated unequally. Luckily there were the braves soles who weren’t afraid of the ‘Pork Choppers’, police and discriminators and stood up for the community and their rights. The thing with all of this discrimination is, its destroying the foundation that our forefathers set for us, it is taking away our rights as a human. African Americans are people too and they fought for what they deserved even though they were constantly discriminated against.
Although Florida started out as separate but unequal, what seem to be ...

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...his era proved to be virtually powerless. The government was full of corrupt and evil minds that only cared for themselves and their family, not about the bettering of Florida as a state. African Americans could have brought more revenue then what was created by the tourist in the 1900’s because in fact most would work for cheaper, allowing people to have more income because of fewer expenses, instead they were worried about something as minute as skin color and allowed themselves to lose not only money but respect for their race. I really liked this chapter and thought it had a lot of information that I had no idea about and allowed me to be aware of the history of what went on in Daytona Beach as far as civil rights movement wise. I really liked the way to information was presented it was easy and very powerful facts, especially about the jobs and poverty rates.

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