Florida
Crucial decisions made in 1980 in South Florida cast a shadow on Jimmy Carter’s presidency
Many thought the president was fooled by Fidel Castro as the Mariel boat lift taxed South Florida. His indecision after the Liberty City riots angered many.
Jimmy Carter’s favorite moment in Palm Beach County might have been the time 2,500 people turned out for a book signing in 1995 at a Boca Raton bookstore.
His low point, at least in South Florida, likely was the day 15 years earlier, when he came to Miami’s riot-scarred Liberty City in 1980 and angry protesters tossed rocks at the presidential limousine.
Carter, who died Sunday at 100, was an unassuming but charismatic Georgia peanut farmer who rode post-Watergate anger to oust Gerald Ford from the White House in 1976 and become America’s 39th president. He was himself voted out four years later by Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” conservative wave.
He then spent the rest of his life becoming perhaps the most beloved former president, by becoming a respected elder statesman on numerous domestic and world topics and setting a standard for community service worldwide through numerous organizations, all while fighting advancing age and several health issues, including a bout with brain cancer.
Mariel boat lift, Iran hostage standoff, energy crisis tested Carter’s presidency
Carter’s struggles with Miami’s boiling summer of 1980 — a one-two punch of the Mariel boatlift from Cuba and the May race riots — might not have been on the same level as the humiliating 14½-month Iran hostage standoff, an energy crisis, and what Carter infamously called the nation’s “crisis of confidence.” But the image of people booing him at a Liberty City town hall meeting fed criticism that he was a nice guy who was in way over his head as president. And it helped cost him re-election that fall.
Carter had been the original anti-Washington outsider presidential candidate.
In February 1975, Carter, then 50 and fresh off wrapping up his term as Georgia governor, visited The Breakers in Palm Beach to speak at a money-raising dinner for a medical school. He drew little attention from passers-by as he told reporters, “Yes, I am a serious candidate” for president.
Almost exactly a year later, when he came through for a three-day campaign swing through Palm Beach and Broward counties, all that had changed. He had won the Florida primary in March, with 34% in a field of 12 Democratic candidates, and by the summer, he led the pack of 1976 Democratic presidential nominees. And by the end of that year, he was president-elect. He’d beaten Gerald Ford, 55 to 45%. In Florida, his margin was about 52 to 47%.
Over the next four years, Carter would deal with a full plate of issues. Some would become great successes: top among them the Israel-Egypt Camp David peace accords. But 1970s economic “stagflation” — weak job growth coupled with inflation — steadily eroded the nation’s patience and confidence in the man who had won them over by promising never to lie to them.
Early in 1980, his attention again would turn to Florida.
After six Cubans had crashed the Peruvian embassy on April 1, then-Cuban President Fidel Castro declared that anyone who wanted to boat down to the port at Mariel and pick up a loved one was free to do so. Carter announced the United States would take 3,500, saying on May 5, “We welcome you with an open heart and open arms.”
Castro called his bluff. In the ensuing weeks, South Florida absorbed 125,000. Miami-Dade County’s social services and schools were overwhelmed. Eventually, some refugees would migrate north, taxing Broward and Palm Beach counties and the Treasure Coast.
For Castro, it was a convenient purge of dissidents, the disaffected and troublemakers, whom his propaganda machine branded as unworthy “worms.” And he also took the opportunity to empty his prisons. About 10 percent of the refugees were Cuba’s most hardened criminals or people with mental illnesses. They fed a crime rate that became a national sensation. People suggested the wily Cuban dictator had hoodwinked an American president again.
That would have been more than Florida could handle. But other refugees, especially those who had arrived from Haiti to a far different welcome, complained newly arrived Cubans already were getting preferred treatment.
And then there was Arthur McDuffie.
From Liberty City race riots to Habitat for Humanity
On Dec. 17, 1979, the insurance salesman — black, 33, and with no criminal record — had been chased by police through Liberty City and ended up dead. District Attorney Janet Reno, who later would be Bill Clinton’s U.S. attorney general, took four white cops to trial, alleging they beat McDuffie to death and then covered it up. Blacks fed up with what they saw as decades of police abuse seethed and waited. In March, a judge, warning the case was “a time bomb,” moved the trial to Tampa.
It didn’t matter. When the officers were acquitted May 17, furious residents of Liberty City broke windows, looted, pulled white motorists from their cars and beat them to death and burned one shop after another. The violence would last three days and leave 18 dead, 400 hurt and $100 million in damage.
In a four-hour visit to South Florida, Carter was noncommittal about what the federal government would do — if anything — to help South Florida recover from a refugee crisis brought about by national policy, and rebuild neighborhoods burned after decades of building Black rage that certainly wasn’t specific to Miami. As Carter left a community center following a tense town hall meeting, people threw rocks, cans and bottles at his limo; one bottle hit it.
“The people are not easily fooled,” a Miami News editorial said, “and they have long memories, longer even than Mr. Carter may think.”
By July, Carter’s White House would reveal a package of aid. It was too late. Months later, Carter was voted out.
In the ensuing decades, his image would shift as he devoted his life to philanthropy and peacemaking. In 1989, now eight years into his forced retirement, Carter still was a popular figure when he addressed about 2,500 people at a $60-a-head benefit at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
And two years later, he was back in South Florida with Habitat for Humanity, which builds affordable housing around the world. In that one week, he and volunteers would build 14 houses and a daycare center. The neighborhood: Liberty City.
Eliot Kleinberg retired from The Palm Beach Post in 2020 after a 36-year journalism career.
An Iranian-made drone displayed at the Biltmore Hotel served as a stark warning from national security advocates and South Florida officials who say Cuba’s growing military ties with Iran could pose a threat to the United States.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, chairman of the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, joined U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Florida, to highlight concerns about what they say are roughly 300 Iranian drones that have been delivered to Cuba.
Standing alongside one of the drones, Bush described the weapon as among the deadliest battlefield threats faced by American forces in recent years.
“Most loss of life of the U.S. military than any single weapon that exists over the last 15 years,” Bush said.
Gimenez warned that the drones’ capabilities make them particularly concerning because of their ability to carry significant explosive payloads over long distances.
“This particular model, there is about over 100 pounds of explosives,” Gimenez said. “That’s a pretty big bang. That’s why they call them kamikaze drones — they crash into their target and they explode.”
According to Gimenez, the drones can reach speeds of about 115 miles per hour and travel more than 1,000 miles, placing South Florida well within range. He said the aircraft could also reach the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and other cities throughout the southeastern United States, including Tallahassee and Atlanta.
The congressman said one of the primary concerns is the potential for Iran-style drone warfare tactics, in which large numbers of drones are launched simultaneously to overwhelm air defense systems.
While the United States has sophisticated defense systems capable of intercepting incoming drones, Gimenez noted that a successful strike may require only one, or a handful of aircraft to penetrate those defenses.
The event was organized by United Against Nuclear Iran, which has sought to draw attention to expanding military and strategic cooperation between Iran and countries aligned with its interests, including Cuba.
Supporters of the group’s effort say the growing presence of Iranian military technology in the Western Hemisphere warrants increased attention from policymakers and defense officials.
For South Florida residents, the warning underscores the region’s proximity to Cuba and the continuing role the island nation plays in broader geopolitical tensions involving the United States and its adversaries.
Body camera video shows a man fighting with Florida deputies who were trying to rescue him from a snake-and-alligator-infested canal, authorities said.
The incident happened July 3 when Flagler County Sheriff’s Office deputies found a man lying on the ground shirtless in front of an elementary school.
The man, 47-year-old Ryan McMinn, who had been then subject of a previous welfare check, fled on foot, the sheriff’s office said.
A short time later, authorities received a call about a man trying to climb on the side of a house in Palm Coast.
Deputies responded and found McMinn near the canal behind the house and when he spotted the deputies, McMinn ran into the canal and started swimming, authorities said.
“What’s your name?” a deputy asks him in the bodycam footage, as McMinn is seen swimming backwards. “You getting tired?”
Officials said McMinn was ordered to get out of the water multiple times but refused, and when he started to show signs of exhaustion, two deputies went into the canal to pull him out.
The video released by the sheriff’s office on Monday shows the deputies wading into the water before a struggle ensues.
Authorities said McMinn tried to grab one deputy’s head to push it under the water, before he tried to grab the neck of the other deputy.
The deputies were able to get control of McMinn and get him safely to shore.
He was hospitalized before he was arrested and booked into jail on two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer.
“Battering a Deputy Sheriff will guarantee you the loss of your freedom and a trip to jail,” Flagler Sheriff Rick Staly said. “These deputies went into the water to rescue this guy, and he responded by fighting them. I commend our deputies for their willingness to get in a canal that usually have snakes and gators and pull this guy to safety before he drowned.”
The Sunshine State closed out the first month of meteorological summer with a mixed-bag of temperatures, as daily thunderstorm activity helped to keep some communities cooler while others reported one of their hottest Junes on record.
The contrasting observations across the state highlights just how localized Florida’s weather can be, with the sometimes cooler than average temperatures occurring just miles away from heat islands.
Clermont, in Central Florida, recorded its warmest June when compared to typical values, finishing about 4 degrees above average for the month. Meanwhile, Pensacola was the coolest major metro area across the state, ending the month approximately 2 degrees below average.
Cooler than average temperatures were largely found along the Panhandle, while Central and South Florida were home to the heat.
Regions that experienced frequent afternoon showers and thunderstorms generally recorded temperatures closer to seasonal averages, while locations that missed out on the rainfall often experienced temperatures that were well above average.
As a whole, warmer readings outweighed the cooler ones during the first month of meteorological summer, allowing the Sunshine State to experience one of its tenth warmest Junes on record.
The arrival of July has done little to change the pattern, with temperatures expected to get even warmer during the next few weeks.
Forecast models show another extended period of above-average temperatures developing this week as a ridge of high pressure builds across the Sunshine State.
The warmer conditions are expected along and north of the Interstate 4 corridor, where afternoon high temperatures are expected to climb into at least the upper 90s.
When combined with the humidity, the heat index could reach between 104 and 110 degrees through most of the state through the remaining days of the workweek and into the weekend.
The heat indices mean that NOAA’s HeatRisk will reach the Major category in many areas with some neighborhoods potentially reaching the Extreme category.
Residents and visitors spending time outdoors are encouraged to drink plenty of water, take frequent breaks in the air conditioning and avoid strenuous activity during the hottest parts of the day.
Forecast guidance suggests that some ridging will remain in place through at least the middle of next week, leading to several days of above normal heat.
Due to the abundance of seeking air, widespread shower and thunderstorm activity will be hard to come by.
Whether the current pattern persists through the remainder of the month remains uncertain, but the final week of July is climatologically the warmest period of the year, when average afternoon highs reach at least the low to mid-90s.
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