i hope i'm not forgetting anybody but uh thank you and uh you want to go all right thank you this is also he's in our neighborhood as well so he's all right now i'm

gonna give a speech at the night house so i don't want to give my speech right now because y'all got other places to go so i'm gonna shorten this up but a lot of people get may 20th confused with Juneteenth.

Juneteenth is fine.

It is fine.

I celebrate that.

But for Florida, it's May 20th.

And two days before May 20th, Florida's emancipation, I really think it's so appropriate that we remember those enslaved human beings who helped to build Florida.

Dr. Rivers is the author and co-author of numerous publications and is widely respected for his rigorous scholarship and his ability to bring history to life through the stories of individuals uncovered in the documents and history in the archives.

Rivers explains that before the Civil War ended in 1865, Florida was an agrarian-based society dependent upon the labor of enslaved people.

When you think about the state of Florida in 1865, 45% of the inhabitants in 1865 were enslaved workers.

Enslaved workers played a dynamic role in the growth of Florida.

This area called Middle Florida, that was the area that stretched from the Apalachicola River on the west all the way to the Suwannee River on the east.

This tract of land was the most fertile land for growing up staple crops.

And staple crops are generally called cash crops.

These are your revenue crops like cotton, tobacco, indigo, rice.

Historian Larry Rivers.