State and local news media have been abuzz with stories about the Orange Crush Festival for the last few weeks.
“Controversial Orange Crush Festival”
“Heavy police presence planned for Orange Crush Festival”
“Businesses close ahead of the Orange Crush Festival”
Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office emptied out part of the jail, transferring inmates to surrounding cities to make sure they had room for the expected trouble makers.
Good Lord! What sort of shenanigans has the Orange Crush Festival left in its wake?
Well, it seems the festival was last held on Tybee Island. Tybee Island is a barrier island and small city near Savannah, Georgia. There must have been some serious things going on there as 79 people were arrested during the festival.
That’s 79 a night, right? Every night over the three day event? No, that is 79 total.
Or what we in Duval call, a slow Tuesday night.
79 arrests and businesses are closing up and the Sheriff is making room in the jail? Hell there have been almost as many JSO employees arrested since Sheriff Williams has been in office as were arrested on Tybee Island, the majority were pot and alcohol related.
79 people, over a three day long festival were arrested and large portions of Jacksonville and the Beaches are going into lockdown?
Why?
Maybe, just maybe its because the majority of the festival goers are young Black college students.
That is the main reason why they scratched Georgia off their list. It seems that old white people don’t like young Black people having a good time, at least not on “their beach.”
The Orange Crush Festival organizers decided to bring the festival to Jacksonville this year, hoping that they would be treated fairly by the city and local businesses.
Instead, JSO made room in the jail and dozens of local businesses closed up shop completely during the festival, while others closed their doors early each night of the festival.
The Margaritaville Hotel in Jacksonville Beach did everything but post a white’s only sign on their doors.
Their website listed the festival dates as being “restricted” and they were not booking rooms for anyone. They choose to not make any money rather than to have to book rooms for the predominantly Black festival goers.
The LandShark Bar & Grill also closed. An employee told Jax Examiner that the restaurant didn’t have enough staff to run it safely during the festival.
Of course just the weekend before they had plenty of staff to serve the predominantly white crowd during the SeaWalk Music festival.
Pete’s in Neptune Beach and Time Out Sports Grill also closed during the festival. Many others operated at “reduced capacity”, blaming their concerns on Covid, when they had no such concerns for the previous week’s “white festival.”
Some folks on Heckscher Drive went so far as to post to social media false claims of road and ferry closings, in an attempt to keep “outsiders” away from their road and their beach. I said folks but I meant white people, and they said outsiders but they meant Black people, well, they meant another word that racists white people like to use for Black people.
The festival has now ended and other than for young folks having had a good time in our city, and local businesses that stayed open to serve all customers having made money, there’s not much more to report.
Except for that fact that the Duval County Jail currently has fewer prisoners than it did when we had that “white festival.”