Taking PoliceReform toTrump Country
Feature | Filed 6:00 a.m. 01.24.2017
This story was produced in collaboration with PBS NEWSHOUR.
Correspondent: John Carlos Frey | Producer: Mike Fritz
Additional Reporting By Manuel Villa
Volusia County, Florida — This was one of the last places in the South to end segregation, a land today of gun enthusiasts and NASCAR, where Jews are still cautioned not to draw attention by hanging mezuzahs on their doors, and local history books say little, or nothing, about African-American life here. The most notable change in the county’s demographics in the generations since Jim Crow is that black sharecroppers who used to tend white-owned farms have been replaced by thousands of undocumented Mexican farmhands.
1 Cattle ranchers live in the rural northwestern pocket of the county and say the sheriff's office has been responsive to their concerns that include runaway cows and trespassers. 2 A Fruit stand on the side of the road in Pierson. 3 2nd Amendment Gun Sales is a weapon shop near the sheriff’s headquarters. Florida residents only need a permit to carry handguns, not rifles or shotguns. Permits aren’t required to purchase firearms. 1 An Abandoned farmhouse in Pierson, a rural town in Volusia County, Florida. 2 Photo of black prisoners during the early 20th century, courtesy of the Halifax Historical Society Museum in Daytona Beach. 3 Abandoned water tower in Pierson. 4 Undocumented immigrants earn about $9 per hour cutting and dethorning ferns, which are used in traditional floral bouquets. The area is known as the “Fern Capital of the World.” 1 Abandoned water tower in Pierson. 2 Undocumented immigrants earn about $9 per hour cutting and dethorning ferns, which are used in traditional floral bouquets. The area is known as the “Fern Capital of the World.” 3 An Abandoned farmhouse in Pierson, a rural town in Volusia County, Florida. 1 Volusia County courthouse in DeLand. 2 A 1972 newspaper clipping from the Daytona Beach Morning Journal reporting that a grand jury would investigate
