Description
“Captures Florida’s ongoing political transition from a ‘yellow dog,’ lily white state to one where diversity is beginning to make an have an effect on on Florida politics.”—Doug Lyons, former senior editorial author, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Once probably the most South’s poorest and least populated states, Florida experienced a population surge all through the 1960s that diversified the state and transformed it into a microcosm of the nation, but discrimination remained pervasive. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the opportunity to take part in government used to be after all open to up to now silenced voices.
Drawing primarily from personal interviews, Susan MacManus recounts the stories of fifty-one trailblazers—the first minority women and men, both Democrat and Republican—who were elected or appointed to state legislative, executive, and judicial offices and to Congress since the 1960s. She reveals what drove these leaders to enter office, how they ran their campaigns, what rewards each found all through their terms, and what advice they would share with aspiring politicians. What emerges is an in-depth rendering of personal struggles—guided by opportunity, ambition, and idealism—that have made Florida the vibrant, diverse state it is today.
A volume in the series Florida Government and Politics, edited by David R. Colburn and Susan A. MacManus