History Fort Lauderdale committed to accurately telling stories of region’s racial past | Opinion
Who could have imagined when 2020 began that, in less than six months, we would contend with so many extraordinary challenges: a global pandemic, the subsequent economic uncertainty and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked a national and international uprising against systemic racism?
Floyd’s name now is added to a long list of Black men, women and children illegally executed with impunity, including Rubin Stacy right here in Broward County. On July 16, 1935, Stacy, an African-American man, was accused of a crime by a white woman. Three days later, Stacy was delivered by the sheriff’s deputy into the hands of a large mob that had gathered to watch and participate in his illegal public execution. Stacy’s lifeless body was left hanging for days from a pine tree, a public spectacle gathering white families, including small children, and further terrorizing the African-American community.
Rubin Stacy is remembered by his family and community and memorialized in the National Museum of Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
History Fort Lauderdale joins with museums around the country calling for the immediate eradication of racial profiling and systemic abuse of people of color. As a community of human beings, it is time we develop a vaccine to end the epidemic of racism that has plagued our country since its inception.
Our museums, research library and staff pledge to continue to uncover our own biases and contributions to the current state of inequity. We must listen and learn how to create safe, constructive spaces for sharing histories of the diverse communities that built and continue to shape Broward County, including the Black and brown ancestors who developed and protected this land for millennia. Going forward, this pledge takes on new meaning as the future of Broward County is determined by its minority-majority population.
Every so often, history presents us with “moments of impact” that challenge us to do better. The attempted genocide of the original people and punishing laws of the Jim Crow South are scars on the land we occupy today. History Fort Lauderdale will continue to proactively collaborate with our community to educate and inform by presenting multiple perspectives of the unvarnished stories of our past and documenting the complex and diverse stories of our present.
To honor George Floyd, Rubin Stacy and the thousands of individuals in our local community who suffer racial persecution, History Fort Lauderdale vows to provide equitable accounts of history, including Black pioneers, Caribbean immigrants and original peoples of South Florida. Our social fabric has always been strengthened by the contributions of these communities. We still have much work to do to ensure that actions supporting equity and anti-racism are included in every level of our organizational planning, programming, operations and decision making.
Patricia Zeiler is executive director of HISTORY Fort Lauderdale.
