The Week Ahead: Your stories to look out for in North Central Florida wcjb.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wcjb.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Gainesville sister city program pursues statue construction after initial rejection
Students from Gainesville and Duhok, Iraq, worked together on an art submission through a virtual exchange program Graphic by Alex Brown
Alachua County called on artists to design art centered around the concept of a megaphone.
The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners received 19 submissions. All were rejected, and a Martin Luther King Jr. statue is now the new artwork concept for the west lawn of the Alachua County Administration Building.
An anonymous citizen offered to match up to $50,000 if the county chooses to have a Martin Luther King Jr. statue created for the west lawn, according to Gina Peebles, Alachua County assistant county manager and chief of staff. The proposed statue concept contrasts a prior requirement that the project could not honor a person, according to the county’s website. Peebles said the current budget with county and donor fund
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“…Speed decided to elevate her usual celebration of Black History Month on Facebook. Almost each day in February this year, Speed spotlighted one Black leader in the local area. ‘It’s a bunch of people that don’t know the value that we have right here in Gainesville,’ Speed said. ‘I feel there’s a lot of people that don’t know the history of how much we have accomplished. ”
“Alyssa Brown, vice president of public policy for the Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce, said in the first rounds of PPP loans, 3,700 businesses in Alachua County received them, totaling about $267 million in funding and helping to save thousands of jobs. ‘We’re not out of the woods, but I think the first two rounds have definitely been helpful to businesses,’ she said.”
Committee Discusses Historical Marker To Commemorate Victims Of Lynching In Gainesville wuft.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wuft.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Gainesville’s first soil collection ceremony memorializes city’s lynching victims
About 100 community members, Gainesville residents and local officials gathered to honor the 12 victims February 22, 2021 | 6:30am EST
Alachua County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, 69, (right) and her granddaughter Tashayla Downer, 8, (left) fill a jar with soil to honor Andrew Ford at the Gainesville Soil Collection Ceremony on Feb. 20, 2021. Ford was lynched in Gainesville on Aug. 24, 1891, according to a pamphlet from the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project. Photo by Julia Cooper | The Independent Florida Alligator
Latoya Brazil didn’t know the story of how her great-grandfather Lester Watts was lynched in Gainesville until she was 17