The Florida History Podcast

George Washington never visited Florida but he had an obsession with the military value of St Augustine for the British.

Ahead of the July 4 holiday and all the commemorations of the 250th Anniversary of the United States we remind folks that Florida stayed loyal to the crown during the Revolution and feature a few key figures in that pro-British sentiment.

Florida has a long history of Anti-Catholicism which we break down in this episode.

We discuss the history of the Voting Rights Act in Florida - what Florida was like for African-American voting rights before 1965 and all the incremental progress and eventual decline since the initial passage in 1965.

We finish up our extensive look at cancelled expressways in the state with a look at the panhandle.

We discuss cancelled expressways outside large urban areas and in fast growing sprawlish counties in the peninsula.

The University of South Florida was almost turned into an expressway-driven concrete jungle. Students and the USF community fought back. But those were just a few of the roads that planners envisioned in the Tampa Bay area that had to be fought by neighborhood activists in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's.

We continue our look at neighborhood activism and college rebellions against concrete highways by discussing several cancelled road projects in the Orlando area during the 1980's and early 1990's.

The Sawgrass Expressway exists today but it's merely a fragment of what was originally planned. This is a story of condo commando power, FAU student activism, knocking on from the University of Miami-related activism we talked about in the previous podcast (Sawgrass Expressway was a replacement for the "University Expressway which was to run from UM to Northwest Broward and then connect t...

Ever wonder why power lines are in certain places in south Florida. Easy answer...the surface road the run along was meant to be an expressway. Why did all these super highways never get built? Community opposition and an environmental awakening. We discuss that this week on the podcast.

The 50-year struggle (ongoing) to protect the spring and horse country against expressway building in North Central Florida is discussed this week.

We discuss the sprawl created by the extension of I-75 beyond Hillsborough County. The road created major sprawl in Southwest Florida leading to the rapid development of gated and exclusive communities in the area that helped tilt Florida toward the GOP. It also created a new western suburban corporate culture in Broward County that shifted jobs away from the core city areas of Fort Lauderdale and...

We discuss I-10's avoidance of the southside of Tallahassee as an early and rare win for black political power in Florida during the 1950's, 60's and early 70's. We also talk about how the move of I-10 north has in time created more problems for Tallahassee. Additionally, we discuss the building of I-110 through Pensacola and how it decimated that black community.

We discuss the ripping apart of urban neighborhoods in Central Florida by I-4, I-275, I-175, and SR 408.

Miami's Overtown neighborhood was the "Harlem of the South" and the most prosperous black area in the southeast United States. Then came I-95 and I-395. We also discuss the partial-destruction of the Sistrunk area of Fort Lauderdale thanks to I-95.

We discuss the destruction of several historically important black neighborhoods in Jacksonville due to the building of I-10 and I-95.

Starting Tuesday March 24 we will begin a new series on Interstate Highways through Florida and how they impacted historic African-American neighborhoods. We also congratulate Florida and Miami for making the NCAA Tournament again but more importantly pay tribute to USF and UCF for making it this season which is rare for both schools! Cheer for the Florida schools in March Madness!

Acclaimed journalist and historian Eliot Kleinberg has spent over a third of a century chronicling Florida and Florida History. His critically-acclaimed books about the state include his book about the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane which was written in 2003. He spent 33 years at the Palm Beach Post and now has launched a new series of historical novels about prohibition era South Florida. His works ca...

We discuss the court-mandated mid-1960's Redistricting that forced Florida to finally draw legislative districts that had equal numbers of people.

We discuss the 20th Century developments over voting rights in Florida and the role of Governor Leroy Collins in his Federal Government position at Selma.

The Tallahassee Sit Ins were a key moment in Florida's history.

We discuss Florida's most famous lynchings in the 20th Century and the political apparatus in the state that defended and even encouraged them.

We discuss the 1923 Rosewood Massacre, a topic that for a long time was the third rail of Florida politics.

Melissa Fussell an expert on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre which happened on Election Day joins us.

We introduce listeners to horrible history of Jim Crow in Florida as we begin a new series of the Florida History Podcast