This is Gulf Coast Life.

Im Mike Kiniry.

Thanks for joining us.

This Saturday, August 29th.

The nonprofit, the nonpartisan, nonprofit Floridians for Democracy, is holding an event at a church in Fort Myers that they're calling A Rally for Hope.

The date was chosen because Saturday is one day after the 63rd anniversary of the historic March on Washington, when about a quarter million people came together at the Washington Monument and marched down the National Mall and gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where Doctor Martin Luther King Jr delivered his historic I Have a Dream speech.

Floridians for Democracy was founded by a small group of Southwest Floridians in early 2023, in response to what they described at the time as rising autocratic trends in Florida government.

They've grown over the years and hold online events to discuss their outreach efforts and support for democracy and rights, including voting.

I'm joined today by one of the founders, Jim Nathan.

Welcome back to the show, Jim.

Thank you, Mike.

And I'm also joined today for the first time in this context by Sonya McCarter.

She's founder and executive director of the nonprofit Bridging the Gap Center for the Arts.

And she's on the planning committee for this Saturday's rally kind of planned it from what I was learning before we talked, before we started.

Good talking with you again, Sonya.

Glad to be here.

And before we start, in the interest of full disclosure, Floridians for Democracy has been running some paid promotions in WGCU newsletter, which, by the way, you can subscribe to if you'd like daily updates on all the stuff we're doing here at WGCU.

Jim, we've had you on the show over the years, and the past couple of times I have sort of skipped past the origin story of Floridians for Democracy because we talked about it before, but it's probably been a year since we've talked about it.

So for new listeners or a refresher for listeners who've heard you before, give us a bit of the origin story of Floridians for Democracy and how this thing that's now coming up on four years old got going.

Well, back in those days, way back four years ago, we were observing things that we felt were happening in Florida that were not getting attention.

If they got any attention.

I called it the issue de jour as opposed to issued a total, if that is a real word.

And we really couldn't get the media coverage or the recognition, and we felt like we were a canary in the democracy coal mine and the rest of the nation wasn't aware that if Florida lost its soul and lost its ability to effectively have the voices of the people heard, then that was going to be very damaging.

So we started talking about it, and it was right as Covid, we were coming out of Covid and people were afraid to come together in large groups.

So we decided to do a test market to see whether there was an appetite.

We were going to do a zoom call from Sarasota to Naples of 25 to 35 people.

85 people showed up on the call, and we felt from that that we needed to do something and decided rather than just being Southwest Florida, we would go statewide.

Today, we have over 4000 followers through Floridians for Democracy, and every time we do a program here or wherever it might be, we get a few more people that say we need to come together and realize.

So a large part of our effort came with talking to a lot of different organizations and people that had concerns about a specific area, whether it would be the environment or racial justice or women's reproductive rights, whatever it might be, and trying to explain to them, yes, but if we lose democracy, nobody cares not just about your issue, but nobody cares about all these other issues that might be important.

And we need to look at this in a broader context than solely each individual social issue that was under attack.

And since that time, we've actually not only grown, but I think the awareness not only for Florida, but across our nation is beginning to emerge to the reality that we are losing a lot of our rights.

And this tie into the 63rd anniversary of the 1960 3rd March on Washington, really does bring it all home.

When people in in the mid 60s came together over voting rights and civil rights and said, enough is enough, let's come together.

And they marched together.

People of all ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds.

We had Jewish rabbis walking together with with ministers of various faiths and saying, this is we've got to deal with it.

And that came as a significant focus for our nation.

When the Civil Rights Act, followed by the Voting Rights Act, were both passed in the mid 1960s.

And we believe we are seeing those hard earned efforts being pulled apart, just as so many of the other social, important social issues for our country.

So our time for this was to say this is the time not to be in protest mode, but to rally people in hope for the future and to realize that change comes when people come together and share their concerns, but they do it by voting and not being afraid to vote.

And we have a lot of people right now that are afraid to even show up at the voting booth.

So all of this comes together with where we're trying with this program, inspiring hope and committing to vote.

I do want to get more into the program in a bit, but first, I've asked you this before, but every year that goes by, I wonder when you first started, I think some people saw your mission as hyperbolic.

You know, like, oh, the sky is falling.

Look at these people.

Using words like autocracy.

Has that diminished over time?

Absolutely.

I think more and more people are becoming aware that we are focused on a more autocratic environment.

Some people want to use the word fascist environment, whatever.

But we were when we first started, we actually called ourselves the 1939 project, and it was related to in 1939, 25,000 people went to Madison Square Garden on America First and supporting the Nazi regime.

And what we were feeling was, if you look at what happened in the 1930s in Germany and you look at the rights of the people that were taken away slowly by slowly, little by little, and people saying, well, they're not coming after me, they're going after somebody else.

So I'll just sort of keep quiet.

And then they come after the next group and the next group, and we felt like we were seeing elements of that.

And I believe today that certainly there's plenty of people that feel that that's overreacting, hyperbolic in the term you used.

But more people are becoming aware of the fact that our voices are being stymied in so many different ways, and hard fought rights are being diminished or taken away.

So we just feel more supported.

At the same time, we know there's plenty of people that don't want to face that.

And in general, the public is so busy on a day to day basis, the vast majority of the people and we know I'll stop at this point by sharing one of our programs.

We did that.

Still, I can't get out of my head.

It was with a phenomenal attorney that leads a national legal organization, he said.

We as a nation are sleepwalking into autocracy.

Good people, just simply not aware.

You guys describe yourself as nonpartisan.

What do you say to people who say that you're not?

I say that it's sad to believe that wanting people to have a better life, to be a multicultural society, to have freedom of religion, to have the freedom of rights and freedom of different beliefs, the freedom to work together should never be considered a political issue.

It's a humanitarian issue.

And I'm sorry that people want to take a look, even at our program this Saturday, and to look at it as being a political issue.

We've worked hard for it not to be.

It's really just people coming together and saying, we have the right to vote.

Let's come out and do whatever we can to make a difference.

Well, let's pivot into the event now.

Sonya, you're on the committee that planned it real quick.

I'm not going to have you go into your whole life story.

If people want to hear her whole life story, they can listen to her three song stories episode, which we coincidentally recorded not too long ago.

Just real quick, though, tell people what Bridging the Gap Center for the Arts is, and then we'll get into your involvement with this.

Okay.

It's a nonprofit that I started a few years ago, which is basically providing high quality arts access to children and families, performing arts, visual arts who don't readily have that access, who don't have the disposable income to, you know, take an art class or take a music class.

We bring that access directly to them.

When did you meet Jim?

Well, we were just talking before.

I worked at Lima Morial and Health Park, so I never met him personally, but I worked for him, and so I just met him personally today.

But of course, during the the planning of the event, we've been on zoom and, you know, emailing and everything.

So how did you get connected with him for this event then?

If you hadn't met till today?

Well, someone just plugged in my name because, you know, Jim wanted to have voices from the past, you know, historic and powerful voices that have, you know, paved the way for us and and have been through this same kind of challenge to be represented during this, this program.

So he wanted a dramatic presentation and someone brought up my name.

And so that's why I am here.

I do with the Black History Society every year for like the past like 3 or 4 years, something I called the Living Museum, which is taking the voices of people from our history and actually allowing the actors to present it dramatically.

But it's their words.

Is their experience just in a dramatic format?

And just a peek into what we talked about in three song stories for your local bona fides.

You were born and raised in Fort Myers, in the Dunbar community.

Born.

And raised.

And that's where the the event is happening, right?

Is that the where is.

It Mount Olive.

And how did you guys wind up at that church?

Well.

We.

We wanted a fairly new modern church that had all of the technology so that we could zoom this anywhere, any place.

And we wanted a large enough church and we wanted it to be in the black community, an area that has the historical segregation issues and is now feeling beleaguered by a lot of the policies that are occurring, whether it be from health care support or other human service support.

And and so to give that signal, but again, not as a protest but as a coming together.

So we did our own little inventory.

We decided that Mount Olive was the largest and modern church that fit what we wanted to do.

It's right on Veronica Shoemaker Boulevard.

And that added another significance for us.

And we went and spoke with Pastor Givens and had not had not met him before.

And as we painted the vision, his face perked up and he was so proud to walk us around the church, so proud to tell the story and how he would love to get the AME churches involved.

So that's how we we picked it.

And the reason, again, for the large size was not only for this community, but the technology we had hoped to be able to get Senator Warnock, Reverend Warnock, to be the keynote and to come here.

The timing of it, with the all the political stuff going on, did not present well for him to come.

These written a beautiful letter for us, but we were hoping, I was hoping that we could go viral and have this be visible nationally.

Right now, our focus is right here in Southwest Florida to make this as successful as possible, although people can still sign up and register and and do it electronically on a virtual capability this Saturday.

Do you want people to sign up or can people just show up?

They can show up.

We'll find a space for them.

We want as many people as possible.

They want to be a part of really a humanitarian movement to reinforce the people do care about each other, regardless of so many differences.

Instead of a nation that is dividing us in a state that is often dividing us and demeaning us, we want people to want to come together, to be together, and to care for each other.

Sonya, you mentioned and Jim mentioned having people speak.

Maybe, you know, excerpts from the past.

Is it all national figures or are there any local ones?

No, they're all national figures, mostly in honor of the fact that, again, August 28th is that anniversary of the March on Washington.

So they're they're national historic.

I thought maybe you get a little Veronica Shoemaker.

In there.

No, not this time.

But I'm sure there will be other events where we can do that.

Well, we have her family involved and one of our key committee members, Mattie Shoemaker Young, who has a florist shop right around the corner from Mount Olive.

She's been a key player for us, and we're thrilled to have her involved and other members of her family.

Jim, you mentioned back at the beginning you didn't feel like there was enough press coverage.

I found the News-Press op ed.

The News-Press published your op ed about this event.

I don't have you had many op eds published.

Specific to this event?

No, just.

For Floridians for Democracy.

I'm just used to preparing for a conversation with you and doing some googling and not finding any press coverage of any kind.

And so I was just going to ask because it seems like she mentioned she used to work at Lee health.

You used to be the CEO of Lee health.

Some of your co-founders.

Are like.

Presidents emeritus of universities and longest serving.

What's Howard Simon?

What did he do?

The ACLU.

ACLU Michigan?

In other words.

You guys, you guys in your founding corps, you have some pretty.

Notable people.

And yet you don't seem to get that much coverage.

And that's what I'm trying to get at.

No, we've not had a lot of coverage.

We haven't been secret at all about what we're doing.

I've written guest editorials, Howard's written guest editorials.

We've had a number of of doctor Mike Martin has written guest editorials.

So it's not that we've been silent about this, but we just haven't had a lot of media.

We had a nice article in the Cape Coral Breeze recently on this specific event, and we're we're thrilled with that.

But the key thing is we just want people to come and be inspired and commit to vote and commit to get their friends to go and vote.

We're not we are nonpartisan.

We're not suggesting who they vote for, but we do want them to be informed and to make informed decisions, but most importantly, to exercise such a hard fought right to vote that is really under siege today as making it more difficult to vote, instead of making it easier for people to vote.

Who will be?

Who will the guest speakers be?

We have some wonderful guest speakers, besides a letter from Reverend Warnock and a wonderful video from the young Maxwell Frost, the youngest U.S.

representative from Florida really did a phenomenal job in just two minutes of capturing what this event is all about.

But we have in person we've got Rashawn Young, who is a young.

He's the youngest state representative, Florida representative who will be there in person.

We have Rabbi Luna from Temple Bethel who will be joining us and sharing her perspectives.

And she has a whole history of interdenominational relationships from her earliest learnings and background.

We have Lucy Garcia, who's a Hispanic and Haitian advocate and works hard in our community who will be speaking.

We also have this wonderful program that that Sonya started off with.

Here are voices, and she can share a little bit more about that.

We also have some music.

There's a Victor Garcia from Chicago is a noted jazz musician, trumpet, and he's put together a little group.

But he has a belief that jazz and democracy are similar, that are metaphor for each other, that to have effective jazz, there's compromise, there's communication, there's trust among each other.

And that's what democracy is all about.

And he'll be sharing some of those perspectives.

We're going to open up with a beautiful, welcoming music of of of our.

And then I'll just let that be and we'll close with some even more special closing music that everyone knows and will participate in.

I think it'll be an exciting and fun event.

And we also have Genesis.

Correct.

And yes, thank you for that.

Genesis Robinson is the equal ground out of Orlando and he is a powerful visionary.

And we've we've tried to bring in some young speakers and young voices because we've got to get more youth, which is why we reached out to Rashawn Young while we reached out to Maxwell Frost.

And while Genesis Robinson is a little bit older than than those two, he brings a powerful, powerful voice and he will be our closer, because he will be the one to encourage people to truly be motivated to vote.

Are you tapping into the acting community for the voices from the past?

Of course, you know some of those who, whenever I call, they come quickly.

And we also have some new voices that you're going to hear during that evening.

And what I've told them is, you know, when these historic figures gave these speeches, you know, and nationally, standing in front of a camera, facing millions of people, they weren't really concerned about being dramatic.

They were just delivering the truth of what was there.

But what I really wanted to capture on this evening is all of the complexities that that is involved in the emotions and the human condition and the the power and the meaning behind these words that they spoke all those years ago.

So we're really going to bring that to life dramatically.

Are any of the people who will be participating people you worked with through your change program?

Well, yes, my husband is one.

He has no choice.

So.

Well, I just just.

The shorthand is, is you you had a whole acting program to try to find more minority men.

Mostly to do a bunch of shows in town.

And so you've kind of created this little, like, group factors.

But actually, my husband is the only one who will be participating that has gone through that program.

The others I have Scott Thompson, who is going to be doing a reading, and he's a local actor.

He's been acting for years.

So I wanted to make sure that the people that I chose were those who I knew could bring, you know, the complexity that is needed to tell these stories.

But I also have someone who is a little newer to the acting.

I want to provide him with an opportunity and that's been faithful.

He's going to be sharing.

And then Nakia Cavanaugh is new to this area, so I'm very excited to present them to the community.

Jim, we're wrapping up, but I just have a two part question.

Who do you hope will come and who do you wish would come?

I. I, I hope, is also my wish that a lot of young people that would be encouraged by family, friends, churches, whatever will come and be inspired and to realize that giving up is is giving up and that it takes the power of the courage of at least speaking up and not just accepting.

Well, it's just that way.

And it's always been that way.

So there's the hope and and the vision of what we want is, is all tied together.

And it would be wonderful if we had people waiting on the outside trying to get in, had a waiting line for it.

Jim Nathan is co-founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit Floridians for Democracy.

Good to talk to you in person, Jim.

Thank you.

Sonya McCarter is executive director of Bridging the Gap Center for the Arts in Fort Myers, and on the planning committee for this rally for Hope.

Good talking with you again, Sonya.

Thank you.

The Floridians for Democracy Rally for Hope is Saturday the 29th, from 3 to 5 p.m.

at Mount Olive AME Church in Fort Myers.

You can find a link to it and to what they do on our website, wgcu.org/gcl.

Floridians for Democracy has been running some paid promotions in our newsletter.

Just for the interest of full disclosure, if you missed any of the show, you can always hear all of our episodes in their entirety on our website.

Our show today was produced by yours truly, with audio production by Tanner Jenni and video production by David Oquendo.

For now, thanks for listening.

I'm Mike Kiniry.

This is WGCU-FM Fort Myers 90.1 WMKO Marco Island 91.7 FM.

We are NPR for Southwest Florida.