Welcome to Florida

Episode 26: Miami 1980: Riots, Refugees and Cocaine

December 15, 2020 Chadd Scott Season 1 Episode 26
Welcome to Florida
Episode 26: Miami 1980: Riots, Refugees and Cocaine
Show Notes

This week's episode begins with Craig Pittman offering advice to Governor Ron DeSantis.

Craig and Chadd Scott are joined by Nicholas Griffin, author of, "The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees and Cocaine in Miami 1980." Griffin's book shares the remarkable, harrowing and history-altering interconnected stories of Cuba's Marielitos, the largest mass migration event in U.S. history, the explosion of the cocaine trade, and the race riots spawned by the acquital of four Miami-Dade police officers following their beating to death of Black resident Arthur McDuffie, all of which shook Miami to its foundations over a matter of weeks in 1980.

The episode closes with two noteworthy museum exhibitions worth your time, "Yesterday, This Was Home: The Ocoee Massacre of 1920" at the Orange County Regional History Center in Downtown Orlando, and an exhibit of the work of Ft. Myers resident Marcus Jansen at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College in Winter Park.