Author: Carma Henry

Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

Since 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led legislature have rolled back many of Florida’s basic civil rights protections. Although minorities have been most directly affected, David Jolly, the Democrat running to succeed the term-limited DeSantis, argues that all Floridians are harmed. “I don’t think the disparate impact of prejudicial and racist policies from the last 100 years has disappeared or that we’ve reached a moment of real equality and equity,” he said. “I think that disparate impact is still very real today.”

   In the hour before polls closed on election day in Georgia, the international ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta was decked out in red, white, and blue balloons and signs campaigning for Keisha Lance Bottoms for the next Governor of Georgia. In the hours that followed, the election results showed that the former Atlanta mayor had won the Democratic governor’s primary. 

       On April 29, the day the Supreme Court announced its decision in Louisiana v. Callais to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a “deeply disappointed” Sen. Raphael Warnock held a press conference lamenting the huge blow to “the crown jewel of the civil rights movement,” calling it “a slap in the face of those who worked so hard to push this country closer to its ideals.”

Hued Songs will present The Juneteenth Experience 2026, a month-long series of free cultural programming from May 23 through June 20, 2026, across Miami-Dade and Broward counties, celebrating Juneteenth through music, dance, spoken word, visual art and community gathering. The series builds toward Hued Songs’ signature Mainstage Performance, which will be presented in Miami Beach on June 19 and Fort Lauderdale on June 20.

       I was diagnosed with a learning disability early in life. Later, in college, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a chronic condition that reshaped how I managed my health, education and future. These experiences did more than challenge me physically and academically; they shaped my mental and emotional well-being in ways that are often hard to put into words.