In middle school, I was warned to stay away from Jay, Florida. Located within the panhandle, the legacy of Jay is synonymous with its history of being a “sundown town” known for its mass exodus of Black residents in the 1920s. Although I was unaware of what this meant as a teenager, the close proximity between Jay and my hometown flooded my body with terror every time I entered Santa Rosa County, in fear that I would see remnants of a sign that says “N*****, don’t let the sun set on you in Jay.”
In 2019, I moved from Pensacola to attend Florida A&M University, a public historically Black university in the state’s capital. In less than one semester, I quickly learned more about North Florida’s appalling history of segregation and racial discrimination, thanks to books like The Pain And The Promise: The Struggle For Civil Rights In Tallahassee, Florida that documented Tallahassee’s almost eight-month bus boycott.
North Florida’s history of violent race relations stretches nearly 150 miles away to a historical marker that stands to honor the victims of the Rosewood massacre that occurred in 1923. Less than an hour away, a similar plaque commemorates The Newberry Six that were killed in 1916, in addition to three other Black victims of lynching in Newberry. Even though these two tragedies happened in the early 1900s, the horrors at the Dozier School For Boys continued well into the 20th century, and the reform school didn’t close its doors until 2011.
Researchers from the University Of South Florida led the investigation on the school grounds and found numerous unmarked graves for unrecorded deaths, in addition to documentation that revealed emotional abuse and torture. Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Nickel Boys is fictionalized based on the Dozier School.
Directed by RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys is an adaptation of Whitehead’s novel and opens in a Jim Crow-era Tallahassee as it follows Elwood (played by Ethan Herisse). After being falsely accused as an accomplice to car theft, he is sent to the Nickel Academy. There, Curtis befriends Turner (played by Brandon Wilson) and shyly introduces himself as a native of Frenchtown.
The brief mention of Frenchtown, Tallahassee’s historically-Black neighborhood, and Elwood’s aspiration to attend a colored college left me with an uneasy, indescribable feeling that echoed in my head for the remainder of the movie. This vicinity of Florida that I hold close to my heart has such a hidden history of racial violence, and Nickel Boys left me wondering what hasn’t been explicitly shared in Florida’s classrooms or textbooks.
Toward the beginning of my conversation with Ross, I mention my Southern upbringing and short-tempered defense for Florida, to which he self-identifies in solidarity as a fellow “defender of the South.” Ross’ father was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Ross himself lives in Alabama, which influenced his portrayal of Alabama’s Black Belt in his Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County, This Morning, This Evening.
He then references an excerpt from James Baldwin’s Nobody Knows My Name, in which Baldwin expands upon the complicated insider/outsider relationship that Black Americans have with the South. Ross’ vision of the South as a “cul-de-sac for Black American identity” is transparent to all that have watched the documentary, and it is continued with each second of Nickel Boys.
From the scene of the Black schoolteacher recalling his encounters with white supremacists to the unconditional love from Elwood’s grandmother (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), Nickel Boys approaches a fundamental lens of Florida’s Black community. As if these moments aren’t already tear-inducing, cinematographer Jomo Fray does an excellent job to visualize the first-person point of view for both protagonists.
In addition to these gut-wrenching moments, clips from Sidney Poitier’s The Defiant Ones and archival footage sourced from the Florida Memory Project are woven throughout the film to truly encapsulate the devastating forensic findings at the Dozier School For Boys. Upon my first watch of Nickel Boys, one of the chilling moments that caught my attention was an alligator.
In Florida, one of the first things you’re taught as a child is how to zig-zag out of harm’s way if you encounter an alligator. Regardless of how you feel about the reptile, it’s difficult to not recall the depiction of Black children that originated with the term “alligator bait.”
Ross intended for the imagery of the alligator to move past symbolism, and instead, resemble another type of systematic violence. “It becomes this lurking metaphor for the powers that be, and the sort of reptilian blindness with which systems deal with folks that are similar to us,” he said.
Beyond the silver screen, alligators received their big moment in 2024. Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter featured “Alliigator Tears,” which was less about the animal and more about the idiom of faux sympathy tears. In the fall, Lana Del Rey quietly married Jeffrey Dufrene, a Louisiana alligator tour guide. And the full-circle moment to emphasize the relationship between Floridians and alligators occurred when Tampa-born rapper Doechii posed with Coconut, an albino alligator, for the cover of her third mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal.
“I think it’s beautiful the way that Doechii is ‘reclaiming’ these things, because coming from the ‘swamp’ or coming from the country are levied on us as a pejorative,” Ross said, in praise of the Florida rapper. “When, in fact, there are so many beautiful things that emerge from those cultures and experiences that allow one to navigate the world in ways that give one an edge, or help one know themselves in ways that other people don’t know themselves.”
Although Doechii hasn’t blatantly saved the alligator from its status as an intimidating creature, the public may have developed a sweet spot for the reptile as Doechii’s glamorous gator merchandise covers her fans, also known as the Swamp.
In 2023, she told Tampa Bay Times reporter Gabrielle Calise that she’s “making [the swamp] a thing by branding it as this magical land. I’m feeding into my fantasy of whatever I want people to think Florida is about.” She continues to share that the alligator is her favorite animal, applauding their intelligence and survival tactics.
From a North Florida girl to a South Florida girl, I agree with Doechii that alligators are misunderstood, and perhaps, it’s an “if you know you know” thing. And as the Swamp Princess, Doechii’s endless love letter to rep her Florida roots arrives at a time when the Sunshine State desperately needs it.
Ironically, the timing between the Doechii’s Grammy win and the critical acclaim of Nickel Boys comes when Florida is in the news for all the wrong reasons: Governor Ron DeSantis targeting DEI programs, the removal of critical race theory, and climate disaster. These unapologetically Black projects offer a hope to a bolder, brighter representation of Florida. And this time, it centers Black Floridians.
“I think she’s a phenom,” Ross says about Doechii. “I just love how unapologetic and how singular her voice is and how conceptually she approaches her art and her platform.”
Describing the Nickel Boys press tour as a nonstop blur since September, Ross says that it’s an “unbelievable kind of relief” to receive the Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
“There are so many people that go into making a film, and it starts with the creatives, but it also needs money, and it needs producers and to like this film as seen is written that way. To have it nominated and to have the story elevated to that space where everyone will come across the Dozier School For Boys story like they will come across Colson Whitehead to nickel boys. Yeah, just so appreciative and relieved that everyone who kind of trusted in what we could accomplish, it came through.”
