Stories
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Osceola, The Black Drink Singer—Patriot and Warrior of Distinction
The name Osceola is famous now throughout Florida. There is a highway, a county, a national forest and countless landmarks that bear it. To the…
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Annette Gail Howanitz-Barron—The Grandest Floridian
Annette Gail Howanitz-Barron was born in Jacksonville in 1941, the eldest of four siblings and the only girl. Her childhood was marked by hardship—an abusive,…
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Buffalo Tiger—Leader in the Fight for Miccosukee Soveriegnity
I had the honor of meeting the late Buffalo Tiger as a little girl on one of his airboat tours. I remember him as being…
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Zora Neale Hurston—A Genius of the South
Although she was born in Alabama in 1891, Zora Neale Hurston considered the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida—a rural community that was the first incorporated…
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Stetson Kennedy—The Folklorist who Infiltrated, and Humiliated, the Klan
What do you get when you mix righteous fury, deep South grit, and the undercover instincts of a spy thriller hero? You get Stetson goddamn…
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Carita Doggett Corse—Florida’s Field Note Heroine
Carita Doggett Corse (1891–1978) was a pioneering Florida historian, suffragette, and the force behind one of the most successful New Deal arts programs in the…
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Temple Pent—The Honorable Old Squire
My 5x great-grandfather Captain Temple Pent was a pioneer, wrecker, lighthouse keeper, and early Dade County politician. Born in the Bahamas in 1794, he helped…
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Emateloye—Polly Parker’s Incredible Journey of Survival
As U.S. troops rounded up the last remaining Seminoles for forced removal, one woman’s daring escape would alter the fate of her people forever. Polly…
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The Extraordinary Revelation of Hiram Calder
Hiram Calder arrived in Orlando in the year 1902 with his wife, Sarah. They lived, by all accounts, a quiet and ordinary life. He got…