Podcast

Stephanie J. Woods is a rising star of southern art, thanks to her photography, videos and sculptures. This African American artist was born and grew up in the Carolinas, and she now teaches interdisciplinary art at the University of New Mexico.

When Governor Ron DeSantis signed the anti immigrant Senate Bill 1718 into law, a first wave of backlash hit the state. On June 1, thousands marched and protested, truckers refused to haul goods from and to Florida, and dozens of immigrant-owned businesses shut down to show Florida what it’s like to live through a day without migrants.

In December, local artist John Sims passed away surprisingly, at the young age of 54. An African American who grew up in Detroit and a mathematician by training, Sims made ripples with his reinterpretation of flags. Unforgotten is his “Proper Way to Hang the Confederate Flag”: from a gallows.

Homeowners in the city of Venice who bought from Pat Neal are up in arms. The big developer now wants to build a strip mall anchored by a grocery store on a piece of land that was supposed to be a natural preserve, next to a subdivision he himself built.

In April, the Florida Supreme Court sided with the Sarasota County Property Appraiser in a lawsuit filed by a homeowner who was told to pay tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes after he rented a room above his garage.

Over the past two years, adults have been fighting at Sarasota School Board meetings, often in overbearing, bullying, sometimes plain silly ways. Most of this went over the heads of the main subject of this whole debate: the students.

Last week was Gun Violence Awareness Week. With neighboring Manatee County turning it into a gun rights celebration, a Stop the Violence cookout in the city of Sarasota turned into a noteworthy event. WSLR Reporter Ramon Lopez has that story.

The Washington-based transformative justice coalition offered, and the Florida NAACP accepted it. The 15-city rolling protests through the state titled “Stay WOKE Florida,” sponsored by the National NAACP, by the American Federation of Teachers and by the Rainbow PUSH coalition, this is an African American poke in the eye for a governor with presidential ambitions who keeps saying that Florida is the place where woke goes to die.