On July 2, the country will mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act,a landmark law in the United States that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Emerald Morrow, 10 Tampa Bay Emmy-award winning reporter, will moderate a conversation to explore the impact of this legislative actin Florida through the personal stories of authors Bill Maxwell and Beverly Coyle and historical insight from Southern History scholar Ray Arsenault.

Maxwell and Coyle were among the last generation of Black and white Floridians to graduate from segregated schools, to sit in separate sections of the bus, and to drink from different water fountains. They came of age just as the curtain was about to fall on Jim Crow race laws and customs. Arsenault, one of the nation’s leading civil rights historians, provides further insight on the social climate of the United States before and following the enactment of the Civil Rights Act. Maxwell and Coyle’s stories of living in segregated Florida are included in Florida Humanities’ anthology, Once Upon a Time in Florida: Stories of Life in the Land of Promises.

Registration is strongly encouraged. A welcome reception with light refreshments and book sales will begin at 6:30pm, followed by the main program at 7pm. Tombolo Books will have copies of Once Upon a Time in Florida as well as other select titles available for purchase at the event.

This program is co-sponsored by Florida Humanities, Tombolo Books, and Allendale United Methodist Church. Funding for this program was provided with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed at this conference do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Moderator:

Emerald Morrow is an investigative reporter for 10 Tampa Bay. Community is her priority, and her work focuses on promoting understanding and uncovering wrongs.

Morrow’s work has earned six regional Emmy awards and multiple honors from the Florida Associated Press Broadcasters, the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists, the Florida Society of Professional Journalists and the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists. She has also covered the Oscars, GRAMMYs, Fashion Week and the Rose Bowl.

Morrow attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Ill., where she earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Panelist:

Raymond Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. One of the nation’s leading civil rights historians, he is the author of several acclaimed and prize-winning books, including Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice and The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America.

Bill Maxwell first joined the St. Petersburg Times in 1994 as an editorial writer. He also wrote a twice-weekly column. In 2004, he left to teach journalism and establish a program at Stillman College in Alabama, but he returned to the Times in August 2006.

A native of Fort Lauderdale, Maxwell was reared in a migrant farming family. After a short time in college and the U.S. Marine Corps, he returned to school. During his college years, he worked as an urban organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and wrote for several civil rights publications. He first began teaching college English in 1973 at Kennedy-King College in Chicago and continued to teach for 18 years. Before joining the Times, Maxwell spent six years writing a weekly column for the Gainesville Sun and the New York Times syndicate. Before that, Maxwell was an investigative reporter for the Fort Pierce Tribune in Fort Pierce, where he focused on labor and migrant farm worker affairs.

Beverly Coyle is known for her literary criticism, short stories, and novels. After receiving a B.A. from Florida State University (1968) and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska (1974), Beverly Coyle taught English at the University of Newcastle, Australia (1974 – 1976) and Vassar College, New York (1977 – 2002). The Kneeling Bus was Coyle’s first work of fiction, and was based on family anecdotes inspired by Florida life in Boynton Beach, Fernandina Beach, Jacksonville and Venice-Nokomis.