This week on Florida Matters, we talk with former Tampa Bay Times columnist Bill Maxwell about his new book of selected columns, "Maximum Vantage" and his life as a journalist and teacher.
Maxwell’s nearly two decades of writing — from 2000 to his retirement in 2019 — is rooted in experience. He took on tough subjects, including racism, poverty, environmental degradation and the living and working conditions of farm laborers.
As an African American who grew up in a farmworker family, Maxwell was born in Fort Lauderdale in 1945 at the end of the Jim Crow era. Every year he and his family would join other migrant farmworkers traveling up the East Coast.
When Maxwell was 16, he went to live with his grandparents in Crescent City. Later he went to college on a football scholarship and joined the Civil Rights movement, helping register Black voters in the South.
You can listen to the full conversation by clicking on the “Listen” button above. Or you can listen on the WUSF app under “Programs & Podcasts.”
