Editing History of Florida (section)

===Post-World War II growth, changes and the Civil Rights Movement===
[[File:Five flags of Florida.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Five flags of Florida, not including the current [[Florida State Flag|State Flag.]]]]

Florida's population mix has changed. After World War II, Florida was transformed as the development of [[air conditioning]] and the [[Interstate highway]] system encouraged migration by residents of the North and Midwest.<ref name=":2" />

In 1950, Florida was ranked twentieth among the states in population; 50 years later it was ranked fourth,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab01.pdf|title=US Census 2000 Table 1. States Ranked by Population|date=April 2, 2001|publisher=Census.gov|url-status=dead|archive-date=2003-10-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031008124943/https://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab01.pdf}}</ref> and 14 years later was number three.<ref name=fund/><ref>{{cite web |last=Pramuk |first=Jacob |date=December 23, 2014 |title=Move over, NY: This state now 3rd most populous |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/23/florida-surpasses-ny-as-3rd-most-populous-state.html |website=[[CNBC]]}}</ref> Due to low tax rates and warm climate, Florida became the destination for many retirees from the Northeast, Midwest and Canada.{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}}

Prior to development, Florida salt marshes were capable of producing large numbers of mosquitoes. The [[Aedes sollicitans|salt marsh mosquito]] does not lay its eggs in standing water, preferring moist sand or mud instead. Biologists learned to control them by "source reduction", the process of removing the moist sand needed by the mosquitoes to breed. To achieve this goal, large sections of coastal marshes were either ditched or diked to remove the moist sand that the mosquitoes required to lay eggs on. Together with chemical controls, it yielded a qualified success.<ref>{{cite book|last=Patterson|first=Gordon|title=The Mosquito Wars: A History of Mosquito Control in Florida|year=2004|publisher=University Press of Florida|location=Gainesville|isbn=978-0813027203}}</ref>

Dramatic changes would also be seen economically in Florida. Agricultural grew during the postwar years and even outpaced the growth of tourism in the state until 1965 when Walt Disney announced the creation of Walt Disney World. Citrus growers doubled their output, cattle ranching expanded in the Kissimmee Valley and farmers began to cultivate the [[Everglades Agricultural Area]] with sugar being the most prominent crop. Sugarcane cultivation would begin to grow significantly in that area after the United States placed an embargo on Cuban sugar in 1959<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Grunwald |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=olHjhlx0Em8C |title=The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2007 |isbn=978-0743251075 |pages=229–231 |via=Google Books}}</ref> (Cuba was the main supplier of sugar to the United States)<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Outman |first=Catherine Joan |year=2020 |title=Florida's Red Tide: The Hidden Costs of Land Development in the Everglades |journal=Student Theses 2015-Present |type=BA thesis |publisher=Fordham University |page=23 |format=PDF |url=https://research.library.fordham.edu/environ_2015/94/ |via=Fordham Research Commons}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=March 2023}} and repealed the Sugar Act's limits on domestic production. Tourism grew in Florida from 3 million visitors to over 15 million by 1965.<ref name=":3" />

==== Changes in demographics ====
In the early postwar period, the state's population had changed markedly by migration of new groups, as well as emigration of African Americans, 40,000 of whom moved north in earlier decades of the 20th century during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]].<ref name=rosewood/> By 1960 the number of African Americans in Florida had increased to 880,186, but declined proportionally to 18% of the state's population.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} This was a much smaller proportion than in 1900, when the census showed they comprised 44% of the state's population, while numbering 230,730 persons.<ref name="USCensusOffice1901">{{cite book |title=Bulletins of the Twelfth Census of the United States: No. 61-106; April 5 – Nov. 1, 1901 |date=1901 |publisher=United States Census Office |page=2 |url={{Google books|zqdCAQAAMAAJ|page=2|plainurl=yes}}}}</ref> The median age would also end up increasing as the state became a popular destination for retirees; going from 28.8 in 1950 to 39.3 by 2000.<ref name=":2" />

The [[Cuban Revolution]] of 1959 resulted in a large wave of Cuban immigration into South Florida, which transformed Miami into a major center of commerce, finance and transportation for all of Latin America. Emigration from [[Haiti]], other Caribbean states, and Central and South America continues to the present day.<ref name=tebeau/>{{rp|476–477}}

The population of Asian-Americans increased in Florida during the postwar years, growing from 1,142 counted by the US Census Bureau in 1950 to 154,302 by 1990. During the 1970s and 1980s Asian-Americans would end up becoming the largest foreign-born group of people in Florida.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mohl |first=Raymond A. |date=Winter 1996 |title=Asian Immigration to Florida |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol74/iss3/3/ |journal=[[The Florida Historical Quarterly]] |publisher=[[Florida Historical Society]] |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=261–286 |via=Showcase of Text, Archive, Research & Scholarship (STARS) from the University of Central Florida}}</ref>

==== Civil Rights movement ====
Like other states in the South, Florida had many African-American leaders who were active in the [[civil rights movement]]. In the 1940s and '50s, a new generation started working on issues, emboldened by veterans who had fought during World War II and wanted to gain more civil rights. [[Harry T. Moore]] built the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] ([[NAACP]]) in Florida, rapidly increasing its membership to 10,000. Because Florida's voter laws were not as restrictive as those of Georgia and Alabama, he had some success in registering black voters. In the 1940s he increased voter registration among black people from 5 to 31% of those age-eligible.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis51.htm#1951moore|title=Murder of Harry & Harriette Moore|date=1951|publisher=Civil Rights Movement History|access-date=2008-03-30}}</ref>

But the state had white groups who resisted change, to the point of attacking and killing black people. In December 1951 whites [[Murder of Harry and Harriette Moore|bombed the house]] of activists Harry Moore and his wife Harriette, who both died of injuries from the blast. Although their murders were not solved then, a state investigation in 2006 reported they had been killed by an independent unit of the [[Ku Klux Klan]]. Numerous bombings were directed against African Americans in 1951–1952 in Florida.<ref>{{cite book |title=Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South|date=1994|publisher= Alfred A. Knopf|pages=562–563|last=Egerton|first=John}}</ref>