Sanford, Florida...the town Jackie Robison was forced to flee...

[joeybee12]

The year before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by becoming the first African American to play major league baseball, he fled the racist threats of townspeople in Sanford, Florida, where Trayvon Martin was shot 66 years later.

It was 1946 and Robinson arrived in this picturesque town in central Florida for spring training with a Brooklyn Dodgers farm team. He didn't stay long.

Robinson was forced to leave Sanford twice, according to Chris Lamb, a professor at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, who wrote a graphic account of Robinson's brush with 100 angry locals in a 2004 book.

The house where Robinson slept during his brief and furtive stay in Sanford still stands, but there is no historical plaque to record his troubled visit before going on to become a baseball hero and an icon of the U.S. civil rights movement.

http://news.yahoo.com/racist-past-haunts-florida-town-where-trayvon-died-111413946--mlb.html

The article doesn't say much about the book...I've linked the Amazon page here.

http://www.amazon.com/Blackout-Untold-Jackie-Robinsons-Training/dp/0803280475

[Fawke Em]

6. People are vaguely racist everywhere in this country.

Racism is not relegated to the South.

Do the Boston riots or the recently murders in Oklahoma ring a bell? Boston is in the Northeast and Oklahoma is in the west.

[antigone382]

9. I've lived in the south my entire life, and I find your cognitive dissonance stunning.

How the hell can you parrot on about how vaguely bigoted "the rest of the people in the South" are without realizing the hateful stereotypes you yourself are invoking??? How can you reference "barefoot toothless jackwagons" (read: many of the poorest and most underserved members of American society, who for most of American history have made due with insufficient access to education, decent jobs, and healthcare) and miss your own sneering classism???

Laughing at people who are at an educational and economic disadvantage to the mainstream, defining them as inherently inferior and backwards, is ugly, and has no place on a liberal message board.

Signed, a proud liberal, trailer dwelling "hick," who has seen more multiculturalism in the cities and towns I have lived in in Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky than I ever saw in Vermont, Massachussetts, or New York, who knows a thing or two about the history of resource exploitation and the labor movement in the American South.

[Fawke Em]

32. Thank you.

Period.

[Art_from_Ark]

28. Oklahoma is a mixture of Midwest, West, and South

Tulsa, where the racist shootings occurred, is kind of on a dividing line. East of Tulsa is a kind of mixture of Midwest and South. West of Tulsa are the Great Plains which are generally considered to be Midwest, while much of the Panhandle is "West".

[TransitJohn]

33. Oklahoma's not really the West

The denizers consider themselves southern, and it's physiographically part of the midwest.

[quaker bill]

11. At that time

only a very few places in FL would have welcomed Jackie Robinson. Sanford would not have been much different than most places. When I arrived here in the early 60's there were still "colored" and "white" drinking fountains.... Public racism in Central FL has been gone for a very long time. The less overt and more closeted variety I am sure still exists pretty much like anywhere.

[HooptieWagon]

15. Very true.

St Petersburg also has a history of racism against integrated ball teams here for spring training, and against travelling minority musicians. That was probably the case all over the south.

[azurnoir]

2. Sanford is also in the same vicinity as Rosewood

close enough in fact that some of the movie was apparently shot in Sanford

[quaker bill]

10. Perhaps so

but the set was largely in Cassia, about 15 miles north and well out in the sticks.

[HooptieWagon]

14. Not true

Rosewood is located a few miles inland from Cedar Key, in whats referred to as the Big Bend area of the west coast. Sanford is located on I 4 between Orlando and Daytona, near the east coast.

[azurnoir]

16. here ya go

The film was shot in Lake County and Sanford, Florida, in the vicinity of the original Rosewood.

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7425223

if you bother to it up there are a few films that bwere shot at least in part in Sanford

and according to Google the distance between Sanford and Rosrwood is about 140 miles

[HooptieWagon]

17. Yes, and 140 miles is on the opposite side of the state.

There is not even a direct highway between the two... it might be a 4 hour drive. Its rigjt on the map, Rosewood about 10 miles from Cedar Key on the west coast, and Sanford about 20 miles from Daytona on the east coast.

[azurnoir]

23. Florida it seems is a narrow state and not just in the figurative sense n/t

[MrMickeysMom]

35. You have that right...

One of the things I miss in the years of living in FL, (besides Walking Lawton Childes, the best governor we ever had after Graham) is the narrow state. You can see sunrise and sunset so easily when living near Orlando. In our case, we could see a space launch after a sunrise on the East Space Coast, then Sunset over the Gulf.

Sanford was an easy 15 or so minute drive to work for me for a number of years. Lots of little towns are like Sanford, FL, which means that like many other states, you can say there are a few major cities (Tampa, St. Pete, Orlando, Jacksonville, Ft Myers, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami), and the rest are little redneck towns, and in Sanfords' case, a little redneck town that made out better but you still couldn't put lipstick on it, due to the Frist Brothers, HCA and that miserable guy who committed Medicare Fraud, who is governor now.

[trumad]

18. Uhh---I live 5 miles from Sanford...

You're wrong.

[azurnoir]

21. you mean Google maps is(sic) wrong? that's where I got the info

please provide further proof of your claims

[HooptieWagon]

24. Claiming Rosewood is near Sanford is like claiming Buffalo is near NYC

Between the two is the huge Ocala National Forest and a whole lot of swamps. There is no direct route, you have to zig zag all over to drive between the two towns. There is nothing "nearby" regarding the two, other than they are both in the same state.

[azurnoir]

27. Buffalo NY and NYC are 400 miles apart hardly the same

but thanks for your input the Google directions did sound like they were backroads, Buffalo to NYC are actual modern highways

[HooptieWagon]

25. I live here. Rosewood is a 3 hour drive to the north.

Ive been there, its just before you get to Cedar Key. Sanford is 3 hours to the northeast. Ive been there too. Driving from Sanford to Rosrwood you could take 46, 441, 44 west to 19,then north on 19 to 24, and SE on 24 to Rosewood. Most of that is two lane back roads, it would take all day. Or, you could take I 4 SW to the Fl Turnpike, NW on the turnpike to I 75, north on I 75 to Ocala, then NW on 27 and alt27 to 24, then SW on 24 to Rosewood. Much more miles, but most of it interstate. Nobody would consider them "nearby".Geesh, thats like saying Orlando and Miami are nearby.

[TransitJohn]

34. Florida must have a shitty highway system if it takes 3 hours to go 140 miles

[HooptieWagon]

37. Probably longer.

There is no direct highway between the two towns. Between the towns is Ocala National Forest and a large swamp. Forests and swamps arent noted for having high speed highway networks.

[HooptieWagon]

19. Rosewood is in Levy County, nowhere near Lake County.

And Sanford is on the opposite side of Orlando from Lake County. Biggest town in Lake County is Clermont. Its mostly swamp.

[azurnoir]

22. approximately 140 miles away which is what Google maps said n/t

[HooptieWagon]

26. Yep, its "nearby"

Youd have no problem walking there in a week or two, if you werent attacked by bears, gators, or crazed redneck methheads.

[KG]

3. Sanford is now a suburb of Orl., not a town out in the sticks

rode my MTB thru it many times, it's built up, tho there some vestiges of it's rural roots.

[freshwest]

7. I didn't know that. Orlando is one of the bigger cities, no?

[quaker bill]

12. Sort of a suburb, but almost all of Orlando is a suburb

of Orlando. There would need to be some "urb" for it to be otherwise. I would grant Orlando about 12 blocks of "urb" in certain nights, not most nights, just some of them.

Sanford, you need to go east or west of "downtown". A bit has changed along I-4 on the west side near the mall. Like a bit of Lake Mary bled over the line to the north. The east side is still cows, oranges, and cabbage fields. Then there is "Midway" which is about the same as it ever was, except they sort of paved the streets, if you call that cold mixed stuff pavement.

It is true that they no longer grow melons along Melonville Road. It is now just single and doublewides on small poorly drained ranchettes.

[DonCoquixote]

13. Orlando

is really a suburb of Disney World. Considering "Lake Buena Vista County" has more rights than some countries, that is NOT far from the truth.

[quaker bill]

29. You have a point

The RCID is a government in its own right.

However with the exception of the few who work there and just around them, few folks in Orlando pay any attention to the theme parks. By the time you get as far north as Sanford, the theme parks might just as well not exist. The for the most part the commute is too long for the pay.

[joeybee12]

20. All of Florida is a suburb of Orlando...I think...

[DonCoquixote]

30. Not really

For one, despite the fact that place has many Yankees in it (which I am told includes me even though I have been here 25 years) there are many parts that are not even Dixie, but OLD Dixie. Polk County in the center is a fine example.

Second, there are older places like Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, even little Pensacola that really could give two shits about Orlando. It's not like Disney really contributes that much to the tax base. We may not preserve our history very well, but we do know that we have a history, which is much more than Orlando can say.

[JackRiddler]

4. Robinson

[TahitiNut]

5. Branch Rickey moved the Dodgers spring training to Daytona as a result.

Which will ever endear Branch Rickey to me.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

36. I Grew Up In Deltona Which Is Just On The Other Side Of Lake Monroe From Sanford.

Moved there when with my folks when I was a kid in 1970. Spent most of my life within thirty, forty miles of that area.

Although some rural vestiges remain, Sanford is very much a suburb of Orlando and the complex where Trayvon was killed resembles the "Old South" as much as some movie set.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

38. 2 Florida men accused of attacking Black teen, damaging car as they drove by

These racist assholes were arrested

Link to tweet

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-florida-men-accused-attacking-black-teen-friend-damaging-car-rcna34082?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

Two white men were arrested after being accused of harassing a Black teenager and damaging his car as he drove through a Sanford, Florida, neighborhood.

The alleged incident happened Tuesday just before 6 p.m. in the Lake Forest neighborhood, an upscale area of Seminole County. It was partially recorded on cellphone video by the teen, Jermaine Jones, and shared on Facebook by his father.

Two men identified by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office as Donald Corsi, 52, and Howard Hughes, 61, are seen in the video screaming at Jermaine.