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Saturday, April 4, will be the Civic Media Center’s annual SpringBoard event.

Guest speaker: Dr. Zoharah Simmons

Topic: The Radical Martin Luther King

As an organizer with SNCC in Mississippi in the mid 1960s, Dr. Simmons saw, first hand, the evolution of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as world events and his interactions with others in the Civic Rights Movement changed and expanded his political thinking and actions. 

Location: Forage Hall at Working Food,  219 NW 10th Ave.

Socializing and dinner: 6-9pm

Donation requested (it’s a fundraiser, folks): sliding scale of $25-$50 (but no one turned away for less)

Advance tickets at CMC (cash or check) or Third House Books (cash only). You may also obtain tickets through Eventbrite at: https://cmcspringboard2020.eventbrite.com

Or by mail … and if you can’t come, donations are obviously welcome anyway at the Civic Media Center, 433 S. Main St., Gainesville, FL 32601

By Fred Sowder, WGOT Sponsorship Coordinator

As winter turns to spring, WGOT continues to strive to be your source for alternative music and talk programming from Gainesville and around the nation. From producing and airing local music to national news coverage from Democracy Now! and everything in between, WGOT has monthly expenses that can only be funded with your help. For this to continue, we need your help on any and all fronts.

Do you own or know of a small business that can be helped by getting its message out on WGOT? If so, please contact us at info@wgot.org. Consider joining the ranks of fine local businesses such as Daily Green, Buckhalter Heating & Air, and Thompson Painting by becoming a WGOT underwriting sponsor. Our listeners can also be a huge financial help to us by contributing to our nearly-funded GoFundMe campaign or by becoming a sustaining member via Patreon. We also plan on participating in The Amazing Give this year on April 22 and 23, so please consider saving room for community media when it comes to your annual giving during this important event.

Byllye Avery [BA], feminist health activist, and her son Wesley [WA] were interviewed by Deidre Houchen [H] in May, 2012.

This is the 57th in a series of transcript excerpts from the UF Samuel Proctor Oral History Program collection.

Transcript edited by Pierce Butler.

BA: I was born in Waynesville, Georgia. I was born at home. My cousin, Ella, was the midwife.

H: What year were you born?

BA: 1937. October 20, 1937. I grew up in DeLand, Florida. I went to Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama. That’s where I met the children’s father. I have two children: Wesley and Sonya. Met him the first day I was there. And I didn’t date him for that whole year, he was always bothering me, and I gave him a hard time. Someone told me not too long ago that’s always a sign, you know? So he and I dated and got married and lived in Jacksonville for about ten years, which we hated living there every single day.

by Veronica Robleto

For almost two years, members of the North Central Florida Social Service/Hispanic Alliance (NCFSS/HA), specifically members of the Human Rights Coalition of Alachua County (HRCAC), Florida Legal Services (FLS) and the Rural Women’s Health Project (RWHP), have attempted to address the repercussions of an incident that occurred Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018, impacting the immigrant community. 

That night, the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) blundered in its response to a domestic violence case. A call was received from a non-English speaker, explaining her fear of abuse at the hands of her companion. Appropriate translation was not obtained by GPD, which led to a misinterpretation of the level of danger the abuser posed. 

Gainesville Veterans for Peace Chapter 14 announces its sixth annual Peace Scholarship Program for the spring of 2020. We are awarding three college scholarships of $750 each for Alachua County high school seniors, college students or adults with a commitment to activities including: social justice and peace, equal justice, conflict resolution and/or nonviolent social change.

Veterans for Peace created these scholarships to give financial support to students in Alachua County, Florida who are planning careers in pursuit of a world of social justice and equity. 

By Shruthi Reddy
student, YDSA GNV member

On February 21, the Young Democratic Socialists in Gainesville led a rally and demonstration to advocate for the payment of a living wage for all workers and contracted employees at the University of Florida. 

The university has chosen to not pay its workers decent wages, endangering these workers’ financial security. The worker groups receiving low wages include Other Personnel Services (OPS) workers and contracted employees such as Aramark food service workers. 

by Gregory Mullaley

For the past 10 months I’ve had the privilege of being associated with a group of people who’ve been visiting the ICE detainees in the Baker County Jail located an hour north of Gainesville. ICE, part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has contracted with the Baker County Sheriff’s Office to hold people they’ve taken into custody, often for the simple crime of being in the United States without legal status.

Twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Mondays, this group travels to Baker on their own time to visit with men and women who are locked away 24 hours a day. These detainees are never allowed to go outside, and the only sunshine they see is from a single large window located in the recreational room some 12 feet above the floor. These men and women are desperate to see anyone from outside the jail as they are not allowed an attorney, unless they or someone else pays for one. And since the jail is located in a remote area, it’s difficult for their families to travel several hours just for a short visit, so we are a welcome sight.

Broadly speaking, the ranked choice voting process (sometimes referred to as instant runoff voting) is applicable in races with three or more candidates. It unfolds as follows:

1. Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots.
2. If a candidate wins an outright majority of first-preference votes (i.e., 50 percent plus one), he or she will be declared the winner.
3. If, on the other hand, no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated from the totals.
4. With all first-preference votes for the failed candidate eliminated, their second-preference choices indicated on those failed candidate ballots are then added to the totals.
5. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority with these added votes.
6. The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast.
7. This eliminates the need for a second, runoff election.

An added benefit to this process is that negative, hostile campaigning can make that candidate less well liked, and therefore less likely to be someone’s second or third choice.

By Jean Chalmers

There is a serious problem in the way we select people to represent us in government. Often candidates, with less than 50 percent approval, get to sit up there and make decisions that affect our daily life. Often we do not vote for whom we actually support because we know that they will not win. We are confused by “spoiler” candidates who just run to steal votes from another candidate. This may be why so many voters simply stay home from the polls.