The Gainesville Iguana A progressive newsletter March 2021 Vol. 35, Issue 3 Of soil and protest From enslavement to mass incarceration Hilda Watts, left, a relative of Lester Watts, pours soil into a glass jar honoring him. Watts was murdered in a 1942 racial killing in Gainesville. The Gainesville Community Remembrance Project Soil Collection Ceremony was held outside the Alachua County Administration Building in on Feb. 20. As part of the the truth and reconciliation process, the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project, in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative, collected soil from sites of known lynchings. The soil will be preserved in the EJI museum in Alabama and kept on display in Alachua County as a reminder of the lynchings that occurred there. Photo by Brad McClenny of the Gainesville Sun. See story on page 2. City election, Tuesday, March 16: Our recommendations by Joe Courter From the City of Gainesville website: Leadership Council, Women in Municipal Government and the Black Caucus. She The City of Gainesville is having an “She is on the board of Planned Parent- hood of South, East and North Florida, formerly served on the Tourism Devel- election for an at-large seat and a district a member of Local Progress, a founding See ELECTION, p.20 seat. Early voting begins March 5, member of the Local Progress Florida Or- election day is March 16. ganizing team, a governor at the Library REGULAR FEATURES For the at-large seat, Gail Johnson is Governing Board and member of the From the Publisher �����������������3 seeking re-election and we strongly Metropolitan Transportation and Plan- Editors’ Picks .............9 endorse her bid to stay in office. Gail ning Organization. She is the chair of the And the Good News is . 10 grew up in Gainesville and graduated Race and Equity Subcommittee at the In Memoriam. 14-16 from UF. After a brief stay in Brooklyn, City of Gainesville, and serves on sev- Oral History . 18-19 NY, she returned home and got involved eral committees for the National League Directory. 21-23 in our community. of Cities, including the Race, Equity and Of soil and protest: remembering lynching victims by E. Stanley Richardson brance Project is a subcommittee of the The ceremony concluded with remarks Alachua County Poet Laureate Alachua County Commission Remem- from a relative of Lester Watts. Watts was brance Project in partnership with the lynched on March 21, 1942. Watts family On Saturday, Feb. 20, at twelve o’clock Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). members thanked the Gainesville com- high noon, the Gainesville Community munity for remembering and honoring Remembrance Project held a soil collec- About 150 community members, includ- their slain ancestor. tion ceremony outside on the lawn of the ing elected officials, concerned citizens Alachua County Administration Building and relatives of the slain, gathered on the Victims of lynchings in Gainesville were: Headquarters in Gainesville, Florida. grounds in a socially distanced area to pay Mr. Stephens their tribute. The location was the closest Harry Franklin The Soil Collection ceremony is part of the area to the actual lynching site, said guest Alachua County Truth and Reconciliation speakers. Alexander Morris Project to remember Alachua County’s Sandy Hacock The ceremony began with a musical trib- lynching victims and other victims of Henry Washington racial terror perpetrated by white mobs. ute by Mr. Lanard Perry on trumpet and the pouring of libation by Mr. Nii “Pa Pa” Christopher Cummings “The Equal Justice Initiative has partnered Sowa-La and Ms. Ayoka Sowa-la. Eli (last name unknown) with community coalitions across the Tony Champion (and his associate, Mr Kelly) nation to collect soil from every lynching Welcoming remarks were given by The Honorable Charles S. Chestnut of the Andrew Ford site as an act of remembrance and Alfred Daniels commitment to honoring the victims of Alachua County Board of County Com- Lester Watts this horrific era of terror. missioners. The Invocation was given by Rev. Gerard Duncan, Sr Pastor of Prayers During the commemorative moment The EJI soil collection project is intended by Faith Ministries. community members transferred soil tak- to provide opportunities for community en from the lynching site into jars labeled members to get closer to the legacy of Rev. Carl Smart, Assistant County Man- with the names of the lynching victims. lynching and to contribute to the effort to ager of Alachua County, gave a presen- build a lasting and more visible memory tation entitled “Remembering Lynching A similar ceremony soil collection cere- of our history of racial injustice. These Victims in Gainesville.” The ceremony mony was held Feb. 5 in the City of New- also included prayers, song and poetry. jars of collected soil are on exhibit in the berry at the infamous Lynch Hammock new Legacy Museum: From Enslavement Equal Justice Initiative representative Ms. fairgrounds, where in 1916, six people to Mass Incarceration, as well as in other Bre Lamkin traveled from Montgomery, were lynched. Another soil collection cer- exhibit spaces, to reflect the history of Alabama, and spoke about other impor- emony is planned for the city of Alachua lynching and our generations’ resolve to tant work of EJI is doing throughout the organized by the Alachua/Newnansville confront the continuing challenges that United States, and in particular, to abolish Subcommittee. The ceremony is to take racial inequality creates.” the death penalty and to provide free legal place in the area of Newnansville at a date representation to individuals sentenced to be determined. Equal Justice Initiative, 2021 to death, and children who are given life During the same time as the Gainesville The Gainesville Community Remem- sentences. Soil collection ceremony was taking place, members of Goddsville Dream Defenders marched from J. Wayne Reitz Union on the UF campus. The event “Blacked Out Histo- ry March” was organized by the Gainesville Squad of Dream Defenders,” in solidar- ity with the University of Florida’s Black Student Union, BHM Cabinet and com- munity members. The march went through the Pleasant Street community, around NW 6th Street, to show the results of gentrifica- tion of the area of a once prosperous African American community. Through the chanting, the crowd was reminded that every movement has a soundtrack and young people are always at the forefront of the social justice struggle. The two events were indicative of America’s ongoing systemic ills. A video of the Feb. 20 ceremony at the Alachua County Administration Building can be seen on Facebook at https:// tinyurl.com/Iguana1183. D PAGE 2, IGUANA, MARCH 2021 GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA From the publisher Subscribe! The Gainesville Iguana A toxic harvest is Alachua County’s independent Just as we were getting the Iguana done for the Jan/Feb progressive newsletter. issue, the nation’s Capitol came under attack by a mob Individuals: $15 of people misled into thinking their side had not won the (or more if you can) election because of it being “stolen.” I believe we actually Low/No income: What you can got away lucky, it could have been very different. Groups: $20 Suppose there had been fully armed riot police guarding Joe Courter Gainesville Iguana the Capitol and they’d opened fire, killing and wounding P.O. Box 14712 dozens of people. Gainesville, FL 32604 Suppose the invasion had been more “successful” and they had captured Congressional Comments, suggestions, contributions leaders, holding them for ransom or even killing them. Even a physical occupation and (written or financial) are welcome. To stand-off, delaying ratification of the election ... what would we be talking about today? list your event or group, contact us at: 352-378-5655 Instead, committees have formed up and will be tracing what actually happened in an orderly way. As we saw from the impeachment hearing, the trail will not be hard to [email protected] follow. The constitutional processes worked, just barely. www.gainesvilleiguana.org facebook.com/gainesvilleiguana The impeachment hearings were impressive, some great young members on the House team. The outcome went predictably due to the quality of the Republican sena- The Iguana has been published tors and their devotion to Trump, but it was a great airing of the record from which monthly or bimonthly by volunteers for over 30 years. Circulation for further investigations and history can build. this issue is 3,000. So how’d we get here? Much was made about “the Big Lie,” referring to the “Stop Publisher: the Steal” claims that actually go back to 2016 and Steve Bannon. They did not need Joe Courter to invoke it then. But the idea of creating and using big lies has been present in US politics for much longer. FDR had big lies told about his idea of Social Security. LBJ Editors Emeritus: the same with regard to Medicare. The Right has been lying about progressive social Jenny Brown policy changes since well before FDR. Mark Piotrowski Editorial Board: Historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose daily postings on Facebook are required Pierce Butler reading for me, addressed this in her Feb. 17 post marking the death of Rush Limbaugh. Joe Courter The rise of Rush owes much to the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 under Beth Grobman the Reagan administration’s FCC. By the end of the 1980s, Rush was on 650 stations. Jessica Newman He caught my ear early on trips up and down I-95 to see family in New Jersey. I Production work, contributors: listened to him quite a bit, a sort of perverse fascination. Joye Barnes Jenny Brown (I also remember another vile right wing propagandist who had a 1987 TV program, Samantha Hoskins Morton Downey, Jr.