When the extreme-right-wing, bigoted Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, dared to speak at a vigil for the victims on Aug. 28, Black residents heckled and booed him for his crocodile tears for the victims, and rightfully so. It is the DeSantis administration’s “Stop WOKE Act” — that has banned Black History studies, which expose the realities for enslaved people under the heinous institution of enslavement and educate on what Black people have endured from that time to today — reflected in these horrendous shootings.
This past spring the oldest Civil Rights organization, the NAACP, issued a travel advisory warning for Black people planning to visit Florida due to what Florida State House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell characterized DeSantis’s policies as: “emboldening” racists and extremists.
DeSantis also signed the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill in 2022 that prohibits or limits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identification in public schools.
In the aftermath of these shootings, Jacksonville’s racist past was recalled. There were at least nine lynchings, including those of Black soldiers returning home following the end of the first World War.