Delray Beach has cancelled its 2027 St. Patrick’s Day parade. Across the county line, the African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale plans to cancel its annual Kwanzaa program. Both are responding to the same Florida law, and it has not taken effect yet.
Senate Bill 1134 bars cities and counties from funding or promoting diversity, equity and inclusion activities, which it defines as programming designed with reference to race, color, sex, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation. It starts Jan. 1, 2027. The Legislature passed it 77 to 37 in the House and 25 to 11 in the Senate, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it. Residents can sue a city that breaks it, and the governor can remove officials he finds in violation.
Delray Beach said this week it is “legally prohibited from organizing or funding either event next year,” naming the parade and its Pride festival. The city also acknowledged that the events “have provided opportunities for the community to gather, celebrate, and connect.”
The Irish parade made the national news. The Black institutions did not. The African American Research Library, in Fort Lauderdale’s Sistrunk neighborhood, holds more than 1 million items on African, African American and Caribbean history, and the county pays for it. Luwando Wright, president of the Friends of the library, told WLRN that “the bill is so vague and ambiguous, you really don’t know what is allowable.” The group is waiting for guidance from Broward County and does not want to make “our elected officials a target.” Until it gets an answer, the Kwanzaa program goes.
Island SPACE Caribbean Museum and the Broward County Black Chamber of Commerce are in the same position. Calibe Thompson, Island SPACE’s executive director, said earlier this fall: “We’ve had to just rethink our entire existence.” The museum has already lost state grant money, and county money is now in doubt.
The law’s defenders point to its exceptions. Cities may still recognize federal and state holidays, so Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day are safe, and Black History Month observances are carved out. They may also issue permits for privately run events on content-neutral terms. Democratic lawmakers warned in March that the wording could reach Women’s History Month, Diwali and Chinese New Year as well.
That is the problem. A holiday exemption protects the day on the calendar. It does not tell a county librarian whether a Kwanzaa ceremony, a Caribbean heritage festival or a lecture on Florida’s Black history counts as programming designed with reference to race. When the penalty for guessing wrong is a lawsuit or the loss of an elected job, the safe answer is to cancel. Black institutions, built over decades to do exactly this work with public money, are the ones making that calculation first.
Florida already took DEI out of its state agencies, colleges and K-12 schools. Local government was what remained. Broward County has not said publicly what it will allow, and the law takes effect Jan. 1.
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