1. Barack Obama’s inauguration and subsequent decisions – Thousands of Black Floridians arrived in Washington, D.C. via trains, jets, automobiles, church and charter buses to personally witness the inauguration of America’s first Black president, an event that seemed impossible less than a year before. Black Floridians were part of a crowd reliably estimated at approximately 1.2 million people who stood for hours in bone-numbing cold on the National Mall on January 20. (Some Floridians even saw snow for the first time on the way back home from D.C.) Even as Obama was forced to meet challenges not of his own making – Iraq, Afghanistan, a worldwide economic meltdown – he made it clear that Black Americans need not expect special treatment from his administration. With the exception of comments regarding the arrest of a personal friend, Harvard University professor Henry Gates, Obama studiously avoided issues even tangentially related to the disproportionate suffering of Black Americans in the midst of the global recession. By the summer of 2009, the Florida Courier was reporting about dissatisfaction among some Black Floridians about how the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package had not trickled down to the Black community.
2. The economic condition of Black Floridians – It was more of the same – but worse. The Black press, including the Florida Courier, had chronicled how Black Americans were already suffering from an economic downturn that began in 2006. Florida’s African-Americans suffered disproportionately as the state’s unemployment and foreclosure levels reached historic highs. Sluggishness in the building and trade sectors pushed Florida’s unemployment up to 11.5 percent in November, its highest level since May 1975. Florida lost 284,800 jobs from January through November 2009. Adding discouraged workers and those being forced to work part time, Florida’s unemployment rate jumped to 18.7 percent, or just over one in five, last month. Using the rule of thumb that conservatively estimates Black unemployment as double that of total unemployment, it’s probable that Black unemployment in Florida may approach 40 percent. Florida’s foreclosure rate in November was the second highest in the nation. One out of every 165 Florida homes was in some stage of foreclosure proceedings. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, 58,500 homes owned by Black families in Florida are expected to be in foreclosure by the end of 2009.
3. The Congressional Black Caucus and the Florida Caucus of Black State Legislators use their leverage – Ten Black members of the powerful House Finance Committee, all members of the Congressional Black Caucus, boycotted a committee meeting and threatened to abandon support for the Obama administration’s banking regulations. They got $4 billion added to a Wall Street regulation bill and $2 billion to a proposed House jobs bill in spending they sought for Black communities and Black entrepreneurs. On the state level, the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators, led by Orlando-area Sen. Gary Siplin, has targeted state agencies, particularly the Department of Transportation, which controls billions of stimulus dollars, for shutting out Black-owned businesses. Florida Black legislators serve on powerful committees that control agency budgets. It’s the first time in recent memory that Black politicians have moved – in unison – on either a national or statewide level to stand up for the economic interests of Black-owned businesses.
4. Stimulus rescues the state budget, but Crist pays for it/2010 campaigns – Gov. Charlie Crist, a moderate Republican governor who’s still popular among Black Floridians, backed Obama’s push to pass the $787 billion federal stimulus package earlier this year. When lawmakers were facing a state budget shortfall projected to be $6 billion, Crist hugged Obama after campaigning for the stimulus with him in February in Fort Myers. The Crist-Obama "man hug" enraged Florida’s Republican right-wingers. After the stimulus was approved, Crist called it "an enormous shot in the arm" and used Florida’s share to stave off catastrophic cuts to the state budget. As the national political media focused on Crist’s U.S. Senate primary against conservative Republican Marco Rubio, Crist later denied he endorsed the federal stimulus and dodged Obama the next time the president came to Florida. Crist is now in a neck-and-neck race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate against Rubio, where – if Crist wins – he is expected to run against Black Congressman Kendrick Meek. The Florida Courier published related stories on the 2010 election campaign, on the regular 2009 legislative session, and the December special session that approved a high-speed railway in Central Florida and financial support for South Florida’s beleaguered TriRail line.
5. Florida’s criminal and juvenile justice system becomes unsustainable – Last year, Florida Secretary of Corrections Walter McNeil told legislators that the state would need to build 19 prisons in the next five years if the prison population continues to grow at its current projected rate. The tab on these buildings: $1.9 billion. That number seemed to be a breaking point, especially with the state going broke. The Coalition for Smart Justice, a broad-based working group, began leading the fight to radically reform Florida’s criminal justice system. They are calling on lawmakers to shift the state’s approach from incarceration to drug treatment and other types of rehabilitation. Another critical issue – "Disproportionate Minority Contact." In the adult system, more than 53,000 Black men are incarcerated in Florida state prisons. That’s more than 50 percent of the 103,000-total inmate population. More than $1.2 billion of the state prison system’s $2.4 billion budget is spent incarcerating Black men. The Florida Courier published related stories on the state’s gang problems, the elimination of "zero tolerance’’ in public schools, and ex-offender success stories like Orlando’s Ralph Martin.
6. State HBCUs face challenges – Bethune-Cookman University, Edward Waters College, Florida A&M University and Florida Memorial University all faced financial challenges, including a federal budget cut courtesy of the Obama administration. FAMU got its groove back by handling accounting issues and getting full accreditation for a number of its various schools – then thrashing archrival B-CU at the 2009 Florida Classic during a year of reduced attendance there. After losing the Classic badly for the second time in two years, longtime B-CU head coach Alvin "Shine’’ Wyatt was replaced. There was a rash of violence – fights, shootings, even a stabbing – as "thug culture" made itself felt at B-CU, FAMU and FMU. B-CU endured the embarrassing aftermath of a free-for-all involving students and staffers that escalated into a personal battle between B-CU President Trudie Kibbe Reed and Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood before tempers calmed down. FMU now has a new interim president, Dr. Sandra T. Thompson, who replaced Dr. Karl Wright. That means that Black women lead three of Florida’s four HBCUs. The Florida Courier published related stories on other HBCUs, including all-male Morehouse College establishing a dress code for its students that equally banned wearing lingerie and sagging pants – at least on campus and at school-related events – a move that sparked national conversation.
7. Michael Jackson dies – Black Floridians were shocked, as was the rest of the planet, when the self-proclaimed "King of Pop" died as a consequence of an anesthesia overdose – allegedly at the hands of a Black doctor. Other notable deaths include longtime Pompano Beach city commissioner E. Pat Larkins, former Daytona Beach resident and president of Rust College Dr. William McMillan Sr., Tampa Black bookstore owner Felicia Wintons Taylor, Haitian activist Father Gerard Jean-Juste, South Florida pastor Cleo Albury, Black female supermodel Naomi Sims, former NFL star Steve McNair, and former NAACP national board president Margaret Bush Wilson. Floridians also mourned the deaths of Jacksonville publishing legend and community activist Isiah Williams, former Miami Herald journalist Mike McQueen, Fort Lauderdale’s first Black commissioner Andrew DeGraffenreidt, former Tuskegee Airman and retired judge Robert Decatur of Titusville, and retired Broward County sheriff deputy Andrew Matthew Thomas Jr.
8. Orlando NAACP direct action against Orlando Magic – Orlando City Commissioner Daisy Lynum was instrumental in the BLUEPRINT project negotiated between the city of Orlando and the National Basketball Association’s Orlando Magic (with local NAACP input) that identified Black businesses that could work on an arena construction project worth almost $400 million. The Orange County branch of the NAACP, led by the Rev. Randolph Bracy and supported by the state organization, used media pressure and street protests to force the city and the Orlando Magic to give more than lip service to the promise of employing Black-owned businesses for the project. The result: Black-owned businesses got about 13 percent, or about $52 million of the construction business. Lynum and Bracy agree that it should have been much more since the project was built in the center of Orlando’s Black community. Without Lynum advocating inside city government and Bracy and the NAACP advocating outside, it would have been a lot less.
9. Black Floridians’ reaction to swine flu – Many Black families in Florida had kitchen-table discussions about whether to get swine flu shots after a rash of diagnoses and deaths around the state. There were long lines, shortages, and a flu vaccine recall that added to the questions and confusion. Currently, Florida is no longer seeing widespread cases of swine flu, a strong sign that the H1N1 virus has peaked in the state, according to data released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
10. Florida Courier awards, series – The newspaper was recognized for work it did in 2008, including a first-place award from the Florida Press Association for the special Barack Obama election issue. The Florida Courier also won two third-place honors from the Society of Professional Journalists’ 59th Annual Green Eyeshade Awards, a journalism contest that recognizes excellence in 11 Southern states. The Green Eyeshade contest drew more than 500 entries in more than 80 categories from media outlets in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. The Florida Courier was the only Black-owned media outlet to win an award. The newspaper also published a series on the cost of incarceration, AIDS/HIV, and an original series called "Looking for Beyoncé," about color consciousness in entertainment and modeling.

Other stories

State NAACP president Adora Obi Nweze becomes a special consultant to Gov. Crist; Judge James Perry was appointed to Florida Supreme Court, which subsequently rejected Crist’s efforts to desegregate Florida’s judiciary; a Black cemetery was discovered in Miami; columnist Lucius Gantt launched a new book tour; there was political corruption in South Florida; Tampa’s Rev. Henry Lyons loses National Baptist Convention election, then sues; ACORN drops dime on low-paid voter registration workers; former astronaut Charles Bolden takes over NASA; Jacksonville native Bob Hayes was elected posthumously to the Pro Football Hall of Fame; Dr. Regina Benjamin becomes America’s surgeon general; Orlando Magic goes to NBA finals; the Pittsburgh Steelers and Coach Mike Tomlin win the Super Bowl; Michael Steele was elected to head the Republican National Committee; a White racist kills a Black security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.; the NAACP celebrates its 100th birthday; White firefighters win a reverse discrimination case; Black newspapers elect Los Angeles activist Danny Bakewell to head its trade group and push for more advertising.