The Gainesville Iguana

The Cotton Club Museum is presenting the second Annual “History of Black Cowboys/Cowgirls in Florida: Then and Now.”

Did you know that Florida has a long history of Black Cowboys and Cowgirls dating back to the 1500s? No?  Well, this is just one example of the history most of us never learned in school. However, on Friday and Saturday, April 4 and 5, that history will come alive at Gainesville’s Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center.

Friday, April 4, 6 pm 

by Save UF Grad Housing

The multi-year fight to save historic Maguire Village and University Village South, a beautiful 348-apartment UF housing community for grad students and their families, the majority international and low-income, is coming to a boil. UF has finally announced a timeline for demolition, which is slated to begin in less than a month.

This month, the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida features excerpts from an interview with Dr. Mildred Hill-Lubin (1933-2018), a retired professor and assistant dean at UF, who was instrumental in bringing African literature to UF. 

Hill-Lubin [H] was interviewed by Ryan Morini [M] in 2014. Excerpt edited by Beth Grobman. For the full interview, go to tinyurl.com/Iguana2141.

M: Let’s start with a little background—your career was sort of situated between African and African American Literature … how did you get started on that track?

H: My early days in college did not include that much African American literature. I remember my senior year, the professor put one book on reserve and had us read a bit out of it. The book was Sterling Brown’s “The Negro Cavalcade.” Because we—at that time, our minds were not even on African American literature—we thought it was not any good, because we had never had any in any place. 

by Jason Bellamy-Fults

In the coming months, I and other local union members are committed to working with the Gainesville Iguana to bring you front-line stories that are relevant to working people in our region and will help us collectively resist the ongoing attacks against working people by oligarchs and their political cronies.

For this issue, we want to remind you why unions matter in this struggle. We’ve seen no better articulation of this argument recently than Michael Podhorzer’s essay “Oligarchs Understand Power. Do We?” (tinyurl.com/Iguana4148). We strongly recommend reading Podhorzer’s essay in full, complete with charts and references. But for those short on time, here’s the abbreviated version:

by Gainesville Residents United

On Nov. 5, 72% of local voters approved a referendum amending the City of Gainesville’s home rule Charter to eliminate the gubernatorially appointed Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority and restore control of the utilities to the elected City Commission. 

The referendum restored control of municipal utilities to the citizens of Gainesville through the City Commission. 

by Madeline Canal

As future doctors, we enter medical school eager to learn how to heal. But too often, we find ourselves asking a different question: How do we help patients who can’t afford or access care in the first place?

Across Florida, medical students are no longer willing to accept the cruel reality of our fragmented, for-profit healthcare system that does not serve us nor our patients. Instead of waiting for change, we are fighting for it.

by Pierce Butler

Voter turnout in last year’s election dropped by 19 million from the totals of 2020, as I wrote in our Jan-Feb issue, and I may have left some readers blaming slackers and airheads who failed to remember the harms caused by Donald Trump’s first term. 

I have to apologize for that, at least in part, because Kamala Harris was defeated by dirty tricks on state and local levels by Republican officials and operatives, at least according to many reports on the pre-election dirty tricks of 2024. Data reporter Greg Palast leads the pack in uncovering who did what when and where, and he concludes:

By Jyoti Parmar, Organizing Representative, Sierra Club of Florida, and David Hastings

The local Sierra Club Suwannee St Johns group has organized a Climate and Energy Book Club where we read important and readable books that focus not just on the problem, but on solutions. Together, we will learn more about climate science and policy and discuss viable solutions. 

Our first book is “The New Climate War: The Fight To Take Back Our Planet” by Michael Mann. In the book, Mann, a renowned climate scientist, shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change. Mann offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet. He believes that the societal tipping point won’t happen without the active participation of citizens everywhere aiding in the collective push forward.

Gainesville Zine Fest is a free three day comics and art event happening the weekend of March 7-9. The Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) and the Civic Media Center (CMC) are partnering to put on an inclusive, accessible, art-filled weekend at both locations.

This will be SAW’s first ever zine festival. SAW was established in 2011 by indie cartoonist Tom Hart as a nonprofit school for comics and visual storytelling. They host Draw Jams every first Saturday of the month, comic readings at Word of Mouth shows, and host both in-person and online workshops for how to make your own comics. 

Gainesville Women for Democracy is busy on two fronts: one is Coalition Building and the other is Visible Actions that encourage and fortify the left wing of our county. We fashion ourselves after the non-violent Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s—build alliances, build on our strengths, make actions meaningful and uplifting. We aim to encourage the local activists to keep on bringing forth a vision of what a just world would look like.

In that spirit, we give you Hope Fest. On Sunday, March 30, from 1-5 pm, we are hosting a gathering of any and all left-wingers. It will be at Heartwood Soundstage, is free but attendees can give donations and can buy raffle tickets for great items and adventures. We’ll use the money to  continue bringing you these kinds of events. There will be music and poetry happening on the outdoor stage. The two bands that are committed so far are: Mama Trish vs. Godzilla and the HogTown Pickers. Individual performers are Nate Turner and Phillip “JazzDad” Thomas. C. Nooriel and Susan Mickleberry will read some original poetry and the incomparable Taylor Williams of Guts and Glory will MC. Stay tuned for additional performers. Write to Pam Smith—acupam45@gmail.com—if you have suggestions for performers or if you have any questions.

Hope to see you there! 

by Joe Courter

Welcome to a coup whose goal seems to be the dismantling of the social order based on empathy. The practices that allowed a flawed but vibrant democracy to succeed are being cast aside by a zealous gang of uber-wealthy oligarchs and their ideological acolytes. They have come in hard and fast, overwhelming us with everything all at once. These are stunning, historical times as we witness the crass and cavalier shattering of accepted norms of governing.

by Mary Savage

The horror of the Trump-Musk regime continues and is being felt throughout the nation and world with the unjust elimination of thousands of federal jobs and the destruction of federal agencies and departments. 

But now, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the dystopian-sounding Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accomplices are targeting the Social Security Administration. We are hearing that Trump and Musk plan to lay off half of the SSA workforce and shutter field offices across the country. This will mean the delay, disruption and denial of benefits.