On May 20, 1865, U.S. General Edward M. McCook gave the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in the state of Florida. During the Civil War, more than 1,000 African-American Floridians joined nearly a quarter of a million African-Americans across the nation to serve in the Union Army and Navy. Many more worked as scouts, spies and laborers in a struggle to end the long nightmare of slavery. Henceforth, African-American Floridians observed May 20 as a sacred day of remembrance of the Peculiar Institution’s many victims, and in hope that the nation would nevermore place property rights above human rights.
African-Americans understood that slavery continued to exist in our hemisphere. In the decades after May 20, African-American churches and conventions organized to protest slavery in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Cuba. One mass meeting, chaired by the great abolitionist the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia, led to the formation of the American Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1840.
Garnet pledged his organization’s support to the anti-colonial struggle being waged in Cuba and stated, “If the veteran abolitionists of the United States had not mustered themselves out of service, I believe that there would not now have been a single slave in the island of Cuba. We sympathize with the patriots of Cuba, not simply because they are republicans, but because their triumph will be the destruction of slavery in that land. All of Europe now frowns upon Spain because of her attitude toward human bondage. We must take our place on the broad platform of human rights, and plead for the brotherhood of the entire human race.”
Tragically, the Rev. Garnet’s call for the recognition of universal human rights fell upon deaf ears in his own country. As one-party rule swept the South, forced labor re-emerged. Convicts, primarily African-American men, were traded as commodities to farmers and corporations to work in the coal mines of Birmingham, Ala., the cotton fields of Georgia and the turpentine camps of Florida. Municipalities viewed the conviction of African-Americans as a source of revenue. J.C. Powell, a white prison captain, dubbed Florida “The American gulag” and PBS’s recent documentary “Slavery by Another Name” reveals that millions of African-American men were held in chattel bondage long after the end of the Civil War.
Courageous voices spoke against the insidious new slavery. Foremost among these was Florida’s Stetson Kennedy. In 1952, Kennedy risked life and limb to gather testimony about slavery in the South, presenting this evidence before the United Nations Commission on Forced Labor in Geneva.
Modern-day slavery continues to exist in Florida. Barry Estabrook notes in his recently published book “Tomatoland” that, “In the last fifteen years, Florida law enforcement officials have freed more than one thousand men and women who have been held and forced to work against their will in the fields of Florida, and that represents only the tip of the iceberg. Most instances of slavery go unreported.”
There is a solution to these egregious violations of human rights in our state. A Florida-based organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, recently earned the Anti-Slavery Award from Anti-Slavery International in London for its efforts to expose and to end slavery in Florida agriculture. Major corporations, including Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Trader Joe’s, have joined the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food, which has led to the first enforceable code of conduct joining consumers, growers and purchasers of Florida produce together to ensure that agricultural workers are treated fairly and paid regularly for their labor.
Unfortunately, a major purchaser of Florida tomatoes, Publix Super Markets, continues to ignore the pleas of religious leaders and Florida consumers to join the growing list of firms that have pledged to abolish exploitation and slavery in our fields. By claiming that it bears no responsibility for the conditions of the men and women who pick the crops that help generate enormous profits, Publix ignores the wishes of its customers who have been petitioning the company for more than two years.
On this newest Emancipation Day, we should pledge to take up Garnet’s call to fight for universal human rights and for the brotherhood of the entire human race regardless of occupation, racial background or nationality. It is up to us to honor the spirit of May 20 in Florida.
Paul Oritz is an associate professor of history and affiliated faculty for Latin American studies and African-American studies at UF.
