Officials, clergy seek answers on DeSantis-appointed commissioner's alleged KKK photo

A group of Gadsden County officials and clergy members are demanding answers from the governor and recently resigned county commissioner Jeffery Moore about a photo allegedly of the commissioner in full Ku Klux Klan garb. 

"What we're asking for today is that, first, commissioner Moore just step up and be a man," said president of the NAACP Tallahassee Chapter Mutaqee Akbar during a Wednesday news conference. "At least acknowledge it because you owe that to the citizens of Gadsden County."

Akbar and other speakers also asked Gov. Ron DeSantis to respond to the controversy after the passage of Hurricane Ian which is scheduled to make landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida Wednesday afternoon.

"If you can come here for photo ops whenever it benefits your office, (you can) come back for another ... and speak to the citizens of Gadsden County," Akbar said. "Ensure them that you'll do whatever background check or historical checks you need to do to make sure these citizens are not insulted like this ever again."

The press conference at the Gadsden County Courthouse comes less than a week after Moore's abrupt resignation on Friday, Sept. 23. Moore was in his position less than two months after he was appointed to the seat in Florida's only predominantly Black county by DeSantis.

The photo's release comes between the primary and the general election and at the same time DeSantis seeks a second term as governor and possibly a space on the 2024 presidential election ballot.

Initial story: Gadsden County commissioner appointed by Gov. DeSantis resigns after alleged KKK photo emerges

On the same day as his resignation, Moore, the only Republican on the five-member board, withdrew from the District 2 race, which was to be decided in the Nov. 8 general election.

Neither Moore nor the Governor's Office has responded to multiple requests for comment from the Democrat.

Gadsden County Sheriff Morris A. Young, who is endorsing DeSantis, told Politico that Moore did not deny his presence in the photo when he approached him about it.

“He never denied at all. Refuted nothing when I showed him the pictures,” Young told the news outlet. “I thought he needed to resign, and I told him that.”

DeSantis' record with Black community questioned

Speakers — including Gadsden County Commissioner Brenda Holt and Marie Rattigan, a community organizer and recent candidate for Florida House District 8 — took aim at what they said is DeSantis' blemished track record regarding Florida's Black residents.

Some brought up Michael Ertel, the DeSantis-appointed secretary of state who resigned in 2019 after the Tallahassee Democrat published a photo of him posing as a Hurricane Katrina victim in blackface years earlier at a private Halloween party.

Back story: Florida Secretary of State Mike Ertel resigns after Halloween blackface photos emerge

Others highlighted the congressional redistricting plan pushed by DeSantis earlier this year that reversed three decades of Black electoral gains by eliminating two of the state’s four districts represented by Black Democrats.

The Republican-led Legislature drew the state’s congressional district boundaries to form 20 Republican-leaning districts to only eight where Democrats would be favored to win.

U.S. Rep. Al Lawson’s Black plurality, Tallahassee-to-Jacksonville district, for example, was shifted to a Duval County-only seat that strongly backed former President Donald Trump in the last election.

DeSantis declared Lawson’s current eight-county district as unconstitutional because it is racially gerrymandered, shaped largely to include a large Black population.

DeSantis redistricts Florida: Amid shouts of 'stop the Black attack', Florida lawmakers pass DeSantis congressional redistricting map

Lawton points to Florida's troubled history with racism

Lawson, who attended Wednesday's press conference, said the recently surfaced photo was troubling for a county that has long dealt with overt racism.

"It's a slap in the face to the African American community in Gadsden County," he said. "When I first saw it, I just couldn't believe (it). It brought back deep wounds and memories not just for me but for many other African Americans in this community."

Lawson then reflected on growing up in "a highly segregated" Gadsden County.

He pointed out areas along the courthouse where he remembered separate water fountains — the ones designated for Black people were run-down, he said.

Other speakers pointed their attention to the tree whose thick branches hung over the press conference: "This is where Black men and Black women were hung," said local pastor Tracey Stallworth.

In 2020, a Confederate monument in front of the courthouse was removed. It was there for 136 years before Charles Gee, a lawyer from Gadsden County, led a campaign that ended in the statue being hauled away following a unanimous county commission vote.

Read more: How a big city lawyer took on a small town Florida Confederate monument — and won

Speakers at the press conference said they're campaigning for an apology from Moore and DeSantis to the people of Gadsden County.

"I'm here to stand in solidarity with the citizens of Gadsden County and all those people who ... got upset and got angry," said Akbar, the NAACP's Tallahassee chapter president.

"What this emotion is about — it's not necessarily about a picture that's 30,40, 50 years old — it's about everything that comes along with seeing that picture, that robe and everything that (it) stands for."

Contact Christopher Cann at ccann@tallahassee.com and follow @ChrisCannFL on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gadsden officials, clergy seek answers on Jeffery Moore alleged KKK photo