Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson speaks to police and youth attending a 5000 Role Models conference at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on Nov. 1, 2022. (Jose A. Iglesias/Miami Herald/TNS
By Rep. Frederica S. Wilson
History has a way of disappearing if no one is willing to tell it.
Too often, we celebrate milestones without remembering the struggle that made them possible. We inherit rights without understanding who fought for them. We walk through doors without knowing who had to break them open. That is why I believe every generation has a responsibility to remember, because when history fades, so does our appreciation for what it took to change it.
This is not an endorsement of any candidate. It is a civics lesson. It is a history lesson. Before you cast your ballot, know the story of District 20.
District 20 is more than a congressional district. It is a civil rights victory.
Its story begins with Josiah Thomas Walls, the first Black Congressman from the State of Florida. His election during Reconstruction represented one of the nation’s earliest promises that democracy could become broader, fairer, and more representative. For a brief moment, Black Floridians saw themselves reflected in the halls of Congress.
That promise did not last.
Across the South, white supremacist violence sought to erase the gains of Reconstruction. Terror replaced hope. Intimidation replaced participation. Organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan worked to drive Black Americans from public life and dismantle the political power they had only just begun to build. Josiah Walls was forced from Congress on April 19, 1876, and with his departure, Florida entered one of the darkest chapters in its democratic history.
For the next 117 years, Florida did not elect another Black Member of Congress.
That is longer than any lifetime. Entire generations were born, raised, and buried without ever seeing Black representation from Florida in the United States Congress. Families taught their children to keep believing even when history gave them every reason to lose hope. Black people died. Black blood was shed. Black skulls were cracked beneath the blows of nightsticks. In the rivers of Florida, the water became an unmarked grave for Black Americans whose only demand was the right to vote, to be fairly represented, and to have their voices heard. Churches became organizing centers. Neighborhoods became movements. Ordinary citizens are still carrying, to this day, extraordinary burdens because they refused to accept that this was permanent.
The story of District 20 is, in many ways, the story of America itself. It is a story of extraordinary progress born from extraordinary sacrifice. It is also a reminder that progress has never followed a straight line. Every advance has been met by resistance. Every victory has required vigilance.
Then, in 1993, history turned.
Corrine Brown, Carrie Meek, and Alcee Hastings were elected to Congress, ending a silence that had lasted 117 years. Their elections did more than fill three seats. They restored a voice that had been absent from Florida’s congressional delegation for more than a century. They reminded the nation that the arc bends towards justice.
Congressman Alcee Hastings would go on to represent what is now Congressional District 20 for many years, carrying forward that legacy of service and advocacy.
District 20 is the legacy of those who refused to be erased.
It is a seat paid for by generations of Black sacrifice.
It exists because countless Black people challenged barriers that once seemed impossible to overcome. Black people organized when organizing carried real risks. Black people marched when marching invited retaliation. Black people voted when others worked tirelessly to deny them that right. Black people understood that democracy is strongest when every community has an opportunity to be represented and every citizen has a voice.
White nationalists marched through our nation’s capital carrying Confederate flags on the Fourth of July just to remind us that Black people cannot be comfortable. Even after more than 400 years of slavery, we still have to continue the fight. The fight for our freedom did not end. It simply became our generation’s responsibility.
That is why the history of District 20 matters.
If Black lives matter, then the history of Black representation matters too.
Representation is not merely symbolic. It shapes conversations and brings lived experiences into the rooms where decisions are made. A representative cannot erase history, but a representative can ensure that history is remembered.
The story of District 20 is also the story of America’s promise and its failures. It reminds us how difficult it has been to expand democracy and how much determination it has taken to make our institutions more representative of the people they serve. It teaches us that progress is not inevitable. It is built, protected, and renewed by each generation.
That is why history deserves our attention.
As the highest-ranking Black elected official in the State of Florida, I have a responsibility to tell you the truth. I know what our ancestors endured to earn a voice in these halls of power, and I know how quickly that voice can be taken away. I know what it costs to lose representation because our history has already lived through that pain.
That is why I am imploring you to vote like your future depends on it, because it does.
We deserve a seat at every table where decisions about our lives, our children, our communities, and our future are made. That seat was not given to us. It was earned through generations of Black sacrifice.
At a time when President Trump and many Republicans are working to undo decades of hard-fought progress, we need a fighter in Congress who understands the lived experiences of Black communities, who knows the history that brought us here, who recognizes what is at stake, and who will never hesitate to defend our right to be heard, represented, and included wherever decisions about our future are made.
So, I am asking you to do more than vote.
I am asking you to honor those who never lived to see this moment because freedom has always demanded participation.
That future is now in your hands.
Every generation must choose whether it will preserve it or surrender it.
When you enter that voting booth, remember that you are carrying the hopes and voices of those who were denied one.
You are carrying the prayers of those who never stopped believing that America could live up to its promise.
Do not leave that legacy behind.
Because District 20 is more than a seat in the United States Congress, it is the seat that Black history built.
Now it is our responsibility to make sure history never has to build it again.
Courtesy of the Westside Gazette
Based on reporting by Jacksonville Free Press.
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