Encyclopedia of the New American Nation

[daedalo]

Jacksonville has undergone a significant transformation in its politics in the last 25 years from some fiscal and social conservatism to radical social conservatism. If you like the agenda of the radical religious right writ large on a government then move to Jacksonville. This is not an issue of rednecks. In the early 1890's reconstructionist republicans controlled the city and state politics. At that time there were black police and other black elected officials. Blacks had the vote. In 1892 on the fourth of July there was an incident, an insurrection, as it were. A big black Busch beer worker Ben Reed got into a fight on the waterfront with his white supervisor who had abused him for running late with a delivery. When word spread to the beach that Reed had killed his victim, trains bound for Jacksonville filled up in a hurry with whites seeking revenge. Word spread that Reed would be lynched. But the black populance which was extensive, educated and organized would not have it, and surrounded the jail for nearly a week with more than 1000 armed citizens. Napoleon B Broward, the sheriff, called in troops and a gatlin gun was set up in front of the jail. Somehow Broward, at times in the past a lawless charlatan, was able to quell a possible race war. This event catapulted Broward, a democrat, and the champion of the white rural population of north Florida into prominence in state politics and ultimately into the governor's mansion. Thereafter the democrats or "dixiecrats" ruled Florida, repealed the right to vote for blacks and dominated state politics until the "Reagan revolution" resulted in a mass defection of dixiecrats into the republican party. In the ensuing 25 years or so Jacksonville has become the epicenter of faith-based social conservatism that seeks to privatize all government services into the hands of faith-based organizations. The idea of separation of church and state is anathema to the leaders of Jacksonville. The latest evidence of this is the city council has just approved funding the construction of a city gymnasium in one of the local church properties.... If you want legislated morality, if you want people to make laws for you based on what their god has spoken to them to do, then Jacksonville is the place for you.

[daedalo]

The area of rural Florida formed by Lake City, Perry, and Ocala had, from the late 19th century until the mid-twentieth century the dubious distinction of being possibly the most racist region of the United States. There were more black Americans lynched in this part of Florida than any other area of equal size in the country. As a major gateway to north central Florida, Jacksonville became indelibly identified with this area when Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was elected the first "Dixiecrat" governor by obtaining a coalition of rural farmers from north central Florida, and an urban constituency in Jacksonville that opposed the "progressive" reconstructionist politics of the Republican party (representing monied development interests located largely on the coast). As the major city in Florida at the time, Jacksonville shared the attitudes of the interior, but as the metropolitan gateway to the state, it prided itself on its reputation for law and order.

[daedalo]

See the newly published book "Lethal Punishment" by Margaret Vandiver. In particular, see chapter 9 "Prevented Lynchings" for a detailed account of the dramatic standoff in Jacksonville in July, 1892.