Beach Drive Forums are a series of conversations for congregation and community on thought-provoking topics, a sort of "Chautauqua South." The monthly (or so) conversations with intriguing guest speakers and subject matter are open to our members and the public and will take place on Wednesdays from about 6-8 p.m. (presentation from 6-7, followed by a time for Q & A and refreshments) in the Youth Center. Everyone is welcome!

APRIL 26: A Tale of Two Cities: St. Petersburg and Tampa, Then and Now.

Do history, intrigue and gossip make your ears perk up?  If so, join well-known authors and local historians, Ray Arsenault and Gary Mormino as they take us on a “tour” of favorite (or not so favorite) St. Petersburg and Tampa buildings and people, past and present. 

Ray Arsenault, a specialist in the political, social, and environmental history of the American South, was educated at Princeton University (B.A. 1969) and Brandeis University from which he received his PH.D. in 1981.  He has taught at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg campus since 1980 and is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and co-director of the Florida Studies Program with Gary Mormino.  Arsenault wrote about the 1961 Freedom Rides in 2006. His work on the critical event in the Civil Rights Movement became the basis of the 2010 documentary, Freedom Riders. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode dedicated to Freedom Riders.

Gary Mormino is an American historian, author, frequent contributor to the Tampa Bay Times, the Frank E. Duckwall Professor of History Emeritus, and past director of the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. He graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has taught at USF since 1977. Mormino's books include Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida, published in 2005; Immigrants on the Hill, 1986, and The Immigrant World of Ybor City, 1987.  He received the Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing in 2014.