Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and an exhibit of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity items. (Rich Lipski/Washington Post via Getty Images and Octavio Jones/Getty Images)
Just two months after the NAACP issued a formal travel advisory for Florida, warning visitors that the state has become “openly hostile toward African Americans” under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s leadership, two major Black organizations are moving their annual multimillion-dollar conferences elsewhere.
Now advocates hope the momentum from the relocations translates to real change that affects the ballot box in 2024.
“It is our hope that the outcry and loss of revenue will force legislators to repeal the terrible bills that were passed in the last few years,” Melba Pearson, a Miami-based civil rights and criminal law attorney, told Yahoo News. “We hope that voters will make solid decisions in the upcoming elections, based on now knowing the impact these negative laws have on their neighbors, friends and communities.”
Organizations pivot from Florida
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the country’s oldest and largest intercollegiate Black fraternity, and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), one of the largest student-governed organizations based in the U.S., have decided to move their conferences that were scheduled to be in Florida in 2025 and 2024, respectively, to other states, citing a potential “hostile” environment for their members.
A member of Alpha Phi Alpha stands in a crowd during a Mothers’ March on June 14, 2020, in Minneapolis. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Alpha Phi Alpha, which was founded in 1906 and boasts a membership of more than 200,000 members and 700 chapters around the world, last week said that due to DeSantis’s “harmful, racist, and insensitive policies against the Black community,” the organization would find a new home for its 119th anniversary convention that was slated to be in Orlando in 2025. The group says the event was expected to generate $4.6 million in economic impact.
In DeSantis rebuke, 2 major Black orgs move their conferences – and millions in revenue – out of Florida
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