By Bobby R. Henry, Sr., Publisher Westside Gazette / NNPA Member Publication
They’re calling it “Alligator Alcatraz”, an attention seeking name for a migrant detention camp tucked deep in the swamps of Florida Everglades. To some, that may sound like tough-on-immigration posturing. But from where we sit, this is something far more insidious. For Black Americans, this moment is more than alarming. It is too close and too familiar.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his administration have chosen to imprison vulnerable people in a remote, mosquito infested swamp, surrounded by gators, snakes, and heat, claiming nature itself will serve as a security fence. Tents. Trailers. No permanent infrastructure. No due process. And no meaningful oversight. It’s not just cruel and inhumane; it’s calculated. It’s a shameful reminder that when America’s systems fail, Black and Brown bodies are the first to be discarded.
We’ve seen this before. In the open fields of slave plantations. In the squalid quarters of convict leasing camps. In the overcrowded jails of Jim Crow and stop-and-frisk America. Now, in 2025, it’s in an open-infused air prison where children and families may be surrounded by predators, both environmental and systemic.
And let us not forget the ugliest truth of all: there was a time in this country when Black babies were used as alligator bait. Yes—documented in old newspapers, minstrel postcards, and whispers of Southern lore—our ancestors’ children were thrown into swamps to lure gators for hunters. It was so normalized it birthed a racist figure of speech, “alligator bait”—used to dehumanize Black children. So, when we hear Florida officials proudly declare they are using the Everglades and its alligators as a “natural perimeter,” we know the echoes of history are not just metaphor – they are real, and they are cruel.
The state calls it a “temporary disaster-style response.” But let’s be clear. This ain’t no hurricane shelter. This is a disaster of democracy. No trial. No public record. No access for the press. No hearings for those detained. This is mass incarceration by another name. And the surroundings chosen for camp is not incidental; it is strategic. It hides the pain, erases the witnesses, and sterilizes the suffering.
Black people know well the language of containment masked as protection. We were once labeled fugitives. Our neighborhoods were once redlined “danger zones.” Our protests for justice were once met with state violence and surveillance. When we hear officials attempt to sell the swamp as a “natural perimeter,” we understand the underlying message: These lives are disposable, out of sight and out of mind.
But we will not look away.
This country cannot call itself a democracy while building open-air prisons for asylum seekers in wildlife-infested wetlands. It cannot claim moral authority while normalizing state-sanctioned suffering. And it cannot claim to have learned from its past when it repeats the same architecture of separate and unequal, dressed in new political language.
And while the administration speaks of “security,” they’ve made no clear plan for what happens when—not if—a hurricane hits. What happens when the rains come, the waters rise, and the very alligators they brag about using as deterrents are washed into these tents filled with human lives? What happens when “natural perimeter” turns into natural disaster? A Hollywood horror movie like Alligator may be fiction, but in the Everglades, storm surge and displaced wildlife are fierce, hungry, scared, realities . And this camp sits right in the path of all that terror.
We, in the Black Press, have long stood as the “Voice of the Voiceless.” That mandate still holds. This is not just a migrant issue. It is a human rights issue. A Black issue. A justice issue. When the most marginalized are thrown to the gators, it won’t be long before the rest of us are next.
We call on our readers to speak up, organize, and demand accountability. We call on churches, civil rights groups, environmental advocates, and freedom fighters of all kinds to resist this monstrous stain on our nation’s conscience.
Because when they build a prison in the swamp, it’s not just the ground that’s sinking—it’s the soul of this country.
Sidebar: “Alligator Bait”—A Historical Atrocity
Though it may sound like myth, the use of Black children as alligator bait is a documented and deeply disturbing part of American history:
- Postcards & Memorabilia: Early 20th-century postcards and souvenirs depicted caricatures of Black children with phrases like “Alligator Bait.” These images were widespread in Jim Crow-era media, revealing the social acceptance of this racist trope.
- Newspaper Accounts: Articles from the early 1900s, including the Washington Times (1908) and Miami New Times, referenced incidents of Black children being used or rumored to be used to attract alligators in Florida and Louisiana.
- Smithsonian & Historian Commentary: Dr. Jessie B. Guzman, editor of the Negro Year Book, and other Black historians documented oral histories passed down from enslaved communities about this practice.
- Scholarly Sources:
- “The Use of Black Children as Alligator Bait in American Popular Culture” – Ferris State University’s Jim Crow Museum
- Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America – which explores broader racial violence and the imagery that supported it.
- “Alligator Bait” analysis in Journal of African American Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2
This isn’t ancient history. It’s a reminder of how Black life has been devalued in the American story—and why we must never be silent when echoes of that past reappear in policy.
