Category Archives: Articles

This month, the SPOHP team is highlights two very important themes, antiracism and the political process. 

This 2018 interview with Mr. William Atkins, former Director of UF’s Multicultural Affairs focuses on the Black experience at UF, while exploring what student activism looks like. Mr. Atkins [A] was interviewed by Cheyenne Chang [C]. 

C: How did the UF community take your activism? What was the environment like for people of color and when things happened what was it like?

A: Directly connected to my experience, one of my favorite quotes by Nelson Mandela, “Education is one of the most powerful weapons you can use to change the world.” To me, that’s my approach to raising awareness around things and engaging with different people, using education as a tool. Not formal education like you gotta go to high school and college and get all these degrees, but this idea of lifelong learning as part of the education process. 

By Fred Sowder

WGOT Station Coordinator

Prior to WGOT first going on the air in January 2008, I started attending meetings about its formation back when the Civic Media Center was still at 1021 West University Avenue. We had a crazy idea to start a low power FM radio station with two missions: to be the college radio station that Gainesville and UF didn’t have, as well as to be a counterpoint to right-wing talk radio that still dominates those formats to this day.

The University of Florida’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) will host a multimedia presentation featuring UF students and commuity supporters from Arkansas and Mississippi, who will share lively stories of freedom struggles in the Delta region.

The event will take place in Pugh Hall on the UF campus on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 5pm. 

This is the inaugural event in the SPOHP’s Challenging Racism @ UF public program series. These programs will showcase how diverse communities are challenging racism on campus, in Florida and throughout the country. 

The first 100 audience members will receive a free copy of the Proctor Program’s 50th anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer booklet featuring oral histories of civil rights movement legends in the Delta. 

The Mississippi Freedom Project archive includes more than 350 oral histories, social movement symposia, organizing workshops, photographs and other materials highlighting the lives of civil rights activists, Black women mayors, labor organizers, educators, and history teachers on both sides of the Mississippi Delta.

Interviews contain stories from narrators who worked directly with Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, Bob Moses as well as descendants of survivors of the 1919 Elaine Massacre. 

Interested in joining MFP? Come and find out how! Refreshments and food will be provided. For information on MFP, visit oral.history.ufl.edu/projects/mfp/.

Facebook Event Page: fb.me/e/2PmliIKBN.

by Bread and Roses staff

Whew, this year has been difficult. In the span of a few months, people seeking clinic based abortion care in Florida have had to reckon with a forced delay in care/24 hour waiting period (necessitating two appointments), a ban on procedures over 15 weeks, and the reversal of Dobbs.* 

In addition, and directly due to the Dobbs decision, Bread and Roses now cares for people from six different states.

by Sheila Payne and Bobby Mermer, PhD, 

Alachua County Labor Coalition

The Gainesville community has waited months after the mauling of resident Terrell Bradley to hear what the Gainesville Police Department and the Gainesville City Commission will do with the troubled GPD canine unit. Scheduled meetings for September and October were abruptly canceled. 

In the interim, a highly stylized video produced by GPD excusing away any inconsistencies between the initial and final amended arrest reports was released, leaning heavily on ‘procedures’ being followed. That propaganda video also assassinates Mr. Bradley’s character. The takeaway: any terribly unfortunate incident happening to someone police interact with is always the suspect’s fault, so long as procedures written and interpreted by the police are followed.

by Greg Mullaley

Two or three years ago I wrote to tell all of you about some wonderful people who call themselves Baker Interfaith Friends (see tinyurl.com/Iguana1474). 

Twice a month a couple of car loads of volunteers would travel the hour north to the Baker County Detention Center where people are being detained by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) pending deportation hearings.

by Joe Courter

We can look back on Election 2022, see how things went and where we are. We are done here in Florida but vote counting continues elsewhere, and happily the Nevada Senate just came in for the Democrats. Now Georgia remains on Dec. 6 to hopefully add an insurance vote. The hyped and feared “Red Wave’ did not happen, and it appears the Democrats will hold the Senate. There seems to be a rebuke of election-denying Trumpers in many states. The strong Republican showing in Florida was actually an outlier nationwide. Our Blue Dot here held firm for the most part. It’s a shame James Ingle lost, and then there’s that “Single-Member District” vote … ugh.

by Aron Ali-McClory

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, a Republican senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, was appointed unanimously by the University of Florida Board of Trustees to be UF’s 13th president.

However, as much as this story has centered around Ben Sasse himself in the past month, it’s deeply important to consider the context in which his coronation happened. 

As the right-wing Tallahassee regime has flexed its muscle in Alachua County, the university has responded by falling into lockstep with their demands. Under the administration of UF President Kent Fuchs, the DeSantis-appointed Board of Trustees has all but made it their mission to wipe out the notion of academic freedom at the University of Florida. 

by Joi Rose

All over Florida, Democrats are scratching their heads and wondering what is happening to the state they have lived in for decades and what this means for their future here. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t cut and dried. Many factors played into the state’s devastating red takeover: low registered Democratic voter turnout, lack of Florida Democratic Party enthusiasm and structural organization, a deficiency in field coordination and Get Out the Vote volunteers, lackluster candidates, further gerrymandered districts, and massive amounts of Republican funding further bolstered by dark money Political Action Committees. 

The November-December issue of the Iguana is now available, and you can access it here! If you want to get your hands on a hard copy, check out our distro locations here.

• Abortion is a bread-and-butter economic issue. We need to treat it that way
by Rebecca Solnit | The Guardian | Nov 3 | tinyurl.com/Iguana1481
Parenthood, criminality or death: these are now the all-too-expensive options for many women in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Abortion is an economic issue, a labor issue, a human rights issue and a healthcare issue.

• Abortion rights won in every state it was on the ballot. Let’s keep doing that
by Joan McCarter | Daily Kos | Nov. 10 | tinyurl.com/Iguana1489
Abortion rights are six for six in 2022, with voters in three states ensconcing the right and three fighting off efforts by Republican lawmakers to further restrict them.