The late Sisco Deen and his wife Gloria played a central role in exhuming history and reconnecting descendants and state historians with the local legacy of General Joseph Hernández, who owned a plantation residence in what became Bings Landing Park and was the first Hispanic in Congress.
Florida History
Remembering Lucy Morgan, Florida’s Most Feared Journalist
When Lucy Morgan started out, female reporters were usually confined to the food and style pages. She was the machete clearing the trail for many women in Florida, not the first pioneering newspaperwoman but surely the most significant. Causing trouble — for the powerful, at least — was her job, and she mentored generations of journalists.
At Sisco Deen’s Memorial, Tales of When Jail Saved Him from Dissolution and a Jeep Shook Him Overboard
More than 130 people turned up at Cattleman’s Hall at the Flagler fairgrounds for the Quaker-style memorial and life celebration of Claude Sisco Deen, the veteran, archivist and self-made historian who exhumed much of Flagler County’s documented history and died at 83 on Aug. 31.
Florida Icon and Pulitzer Prize Winner Lucy Morgan Dies at 82
Lucy Morgan, an icon in Florida politics and American journalism, has died. She was a Pulitzer Prize winner and chief of the St. Petersburg (now Tampa Bay) Times capital bureau in Tallahassee for 20 years, retiring in 2006 and serving as senior correspondent until 2013.
Eatonville Residents Sue Over Future of Historic Black School Site
A descendant of the founders of the Black-incorporated Town of Eatonville has joined a lawsuit contesting the Orange County School District’s control of property dedicated long ago to the education of Black children.
On Rosewood Massacre Anniversary, Sad to See DeSantis Embrace Florida’s Old South Legacy
It’s sad to see Ron DeSantis embrace our Old South legacy rather than trying to lead us to a more inclusive New South future. Instead of demanding equal treatment under the law, open-eyed education and zero-tolerance for anti-Semitism and racism, he runs the other way.
Florida GOP and Insurance Companies Won Big ‘Bailout’ in This Week’s Special Session
The Florida Legislature’s special session on insurance reform ended Thursday with final passage to a bill extending a $1 billion subsidy to insurance companies but doing little to decrease premiums any time soon or provide relief for ordinary homeowners.
Now Florida’s Only 2nd All-American Road, Storied A1A Has Long Navigated Between Quaint and Crass
State Road A1A is now an All-American Road, adding to the road’s paradoxes of beauty and history on one side and and relentless commercialization and development on the other, though the same people who applaud its scenic designation are also those who endanger it most.
Florida Senate Panel Backs Reparations for Descendants of Ocoee Massacre Victims at White Mob’s Hands
Some 60 to 70 black residents of Ocoee were murdered during the massacre in the Central Florida town. The reparation funding levels were modeled, in part, on a 1994 decision by the Legislature to compensate African-American families up to $150,000 for damages in the Rosewood Massacre of 1923.
Talk of Reparations for Slavery and Jim Crow Moves to State Capitols, Including Florida
Four centuries after the first African slaves landed on Virginia shores, state lawmakers across the country are taking up the debate over how to atone for what’s been called “America’s Original Sin.”