The 44 Percent: Esteban Hotesse, Hurricane Ian & Miami Carnival

So it’s 1945, and Esteban Hotesse is 26. By this point, he has been in the Air Force three years. One night, he is asked to sign off on a new rule essentially instituting segregation across the Freeman Army Airfield base. It’s from Col. Robert Selway, the group’s commander. Selway’s position isn’t necessarily unique. Other white officers and many local businesses were not happy that a bunch of Black soldiers were in their southern Indiana town, a place known to be a Ku Klux Klan stronghold.

The plan backfired. Hotesse and 100 other Black officers refused to sign. All 101 officers were subsequently rounded up, arrested and sent to another base in Kentucky. The officers were later released and sent back to Indiana and the incident became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny.

So why is this significant? The Dominican-born Hotesse was a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and one of the few known Spanish-speakers who was part of that storied group. Hotesse never saw combat, but his battle as part of the Freeman Field Mutiny helped pave the way for the military’s desegregation. It also provided a model for the nonviolent, civil disobedience that undergirded the Civil Rights Movement in the following decades.

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month!

INSIDE THE 305

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson starts Supreme Court tenure with a bang:

The first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court made her debut on the bench this week and it took only two days for her to give a little history lesson. In a case concerning the constitutionality of Alabama’s congressional maps, the Miami-raised Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out that “the entire point of the [14th] Amendment was to secure rights of the freed former slaves” and that race should be considered when it comes to drawing majority Black districts.

“I don’t believe that the historical record establishes that the founders believed that race neutrality or race blindness was required,” Jackson said. “… They recognized that there was unequal treatment, that people, based on their race, were being treated unequally.”

OUTSIDE THE 305

Hurricane Ian update:

At least 89 people have died across 14 counties as a result of Hurricane Ian, according to the Florida Medical Examiners Commission. Time and time again, studies have shown that usually the most vulnerable people do not receive disaster recovery funds, according to a 2021 National Advisory Council report.

Here are a few Miami Herald stories:

1. ‘Like the Gulf came in’: Hurricane Ian flooded this historically Black Naples neighborhood

2. He survived Ian in a tree as his mobile home flooded. Are trailer parks too risky?

3. Hundreds remain in shelters after Hurricane Ian; untold numbers left without a home

Black farmer finally awarded Florida medical marijuana license:

Terry Donnell Gwinn, the owner of a Suwanee County farm, will be the first Black owner of a medical marijuana license in Florida. If you read my story about the opening of Cookies Miami back in early September, you will know that this process has been a long time coming. Here’s an excerpt from that story:

Change began to come in 2017 when the Florida Legislature passed a law that set aside one Black farmer license for an applicant who was a plaintiff in Pigford v. Glickman, which redressed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s history of racial discrimination when approving farm loans. The first Pigford license was supposed to be doled out in late 2017 but a lawsuit challenging other aspects of the medical marijuana law stalled the process until 2021.

Meanwhile, Florida’s marijuana industry had ballooned to $1.5 billion. By the time Black farmers applied for a medical marijuana treatment center license in March 2022, the nonrefundable application fee had jumped from $61,000 to $146,000.

Gwinn, 69, beat out 11 other candidates. He and his brother Clifford have operated the Gwinn Brothers Farm for more than 40 years, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

DeSantis-appointed county commissioner resigns amid Klu Klux Klan picture:

In late July, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Jeffery Moore to the Gadsen County Commission. In late September, Moore had resigned after an alleged photo of him dressed in a Ku Klux Klan costume began to circulate.

“What happened here is a slap in the face to Gadsden County,” Congressman Al Lawson told WCTV.

Gadsen is Florida’s only majority Black county. Neither Moore nor DeSantis has acknowledged the photo.

Moore’s resignation comes just weeks after the Anti-Defamation League reported a 50% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2021 and that Florida is home to “an overlapping network of white supremacist” groups, McClatchy’s Ben Wieder wrote. While some experts say Florida is notorious for undercounting hate crimes, the ADL report provides more depth.

“Florida has been undercounting hate crimes for some time,” said Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor at California State University San Bernardino and director of the university’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. “There’s no state in the country that has this poor of a response from its largest cities.”

HIGH CULTURE

Burna Boy brings Pan-Africanism to Miami Carnival weekend:

Long before Burna Boy became the first Nigerian artist to sell out Madison Square Garden, long before he won his first Grammy and long before “Last Last” became the best breakup song that very few know the words to, Burna Boy was promoting his album “African Giant.” The 2019 project would go on to earn a Grammy nomination — that year’s winner Angélique Kidjo would praise Burna Boy during her acceptance speech for “changing the way our continent is perceived and the way African music has been the bedrock of every [type] of music” — yet it was Burna Boy’s constant push for the African Diaspora to reconnect with their home continent during his press tour that stood out.

““I just want this album to be a strong bridge to all black people in the diaspora and across the world,” he said on The Breakfast Club in 2019, later adding, “If we all understand where we’re coming from, like fully understand where we’re all coming from, then we definitely will be sure about where we’re going.”

Burna Boy will headline the Tipsy Music Festival on Friday, the opening day of Miami Carnival weekend. And while some might see the inclusion of an Afrobeats (or Afrofusion as Burna Boy calls it) artist at a Trinidadian event as a sign of disrespect, soca legend Machel Montano called Burna Boy’s upcoming performance a “full circle” moment.

“A lot of what soca music is based upon came from Africa to the shores of the Caribbean,” Montano said. “… If you listen to Afrobeats and soca, they blend very well together.”

Where does “The 44 Percent” name come from? Click here to find out how Miami history influenced the newsletter’s title.