Black family tells experience in visiting Florida amid travel advisory

SANTA ROSA BEACH, Fla. (FLV) – A family of Black Atlanta residents shared how they took a trip to Florida’s Panhandle, despite the recent travel advisory issued by the NAACP on vacationing in the state.

Republicans, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, had called the advisory a “stunt.”

Andrew Lawrence, a senior features writer for the Guardian U.S., wrote how he had been planning to take his family to Santa Rosa Beach for several months.

After experiencing the panhandle, Lawrence said that he did not fully agree with the NAACP’s decision to issue the advisory.

Lawrence said that although there was certainly a “risk” when “venturing out to Florida,” there has also “never been a better time” to see the country as a black person.

“Issuing a travel advisory against one state for its extreme politics doesn’t just play into the zealots’ hands, it gives the rest of the country a break it doesn’t deserve,” he finished.

On May 20, the NAACP Board of Directors issued a travel advisory to the state. Lawrence said it was because Florida’s elected officials showed a “flagrant streak of contempt for and hostility toward Black, ethnic and queer communities.”

The official advisory states that this warning came in direct response to DeSantis’ attempt to “erase black history” and “devalue” the contributions of African Americans.

Critiques of the travel advisory highlighted that NAACP Chairman Leon Russell lives in Tampa. Russell has defended his support for the advisory along with his residency in the state.

Leaders such as Sen. Rick Scott R-Fla., responded to the NAACP’s advisory with an advisory of his own, targeting socialists.

“Let me be clear – any attempts to spread the oppression and poverty that Socialism always brings will be rebuffed by the people of Florida,” Scott’s advisory said.

Lawrence and his family decided to follow through with their vacation plans and drove down to the coastal Florida community, while saying they kept the NAACP’s warning in mind.

“Immediate upon arriving in Santa Rosa Beach, we were struck by the conspicuous lack of black faces,” Lawrence said. “It doesn’t matter if we’re lazing around a spa in Scottsdale or biking around Belle-Île-en-Mer. We anticipate the wary smiles, the nervous laughter, and forward questions about what we do for a living.”

Similarly, gay couples in Florida have expressed that they also feel that they have been attacked and are unsafe in the state with its Republican supermajority leadership.

Jordan Letschert and Robby Price are Sarasota residents who are in a gay relationship and have a young son named Kellen.

“It’s getting harder and harder to stay. The discrimination and the hate have gotten so in-your-face,” Letschert said. “Our tax dollars go to fund public schools, and we have elected leaders who are working against us.“

Lawrence said that during the experience there were a few interactions with conservatives. One included a man who was wearing a “Let’s go Brandon” shirt who smiled as he passed by, and another case was a younger man that was waving a Trump 2024 flag in the beach parking lot.

Overall, he said that the people in the vacation community did not “interrogate” the family’s presence in the area.