It has been just over two years since Black history was made in Broward County with the election of three men of color.
Voters elected Harold Pryor as the Broward State Attorney, Gordon Weekes as the Public Defender and Gregory Tony as the Broward County Sheriff. These men oversee the criminal justice and law enforcement sectors of the county.
These are areas where calls for reform echoed across the country after the death of George Floyd.
Weekes was born and raised in South Florida. He attended Florida Memorial University and Nova Southeastern University for law school. He told NBC 6 that his personal encounters with policing and the judicial system motivated him to purse his career in law.
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“I think it’s incredibly important that people who hold these position in the criminal justice arena, the stake holders who run their respective offices, embrace the real life experiences of people who have to interact with the system, particularly people of color,” he said.
Pryor also has Florida roots, having attended Nova Southeastern University for law school and later starting his career at the State Attorney’s Office.
“Growing up, I experienced the criminal justice system from so many vantage points - having family members who were brutally murder, who had mental health issue, drug addiction issues,” he said, adding part of his priorities include working with people like Weekes and Tony.
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Making the Sunshine State home after he played football at Florida State University, Tony started his law enforcement career at the Coral Springs Police Department. He was appointed to the position in 2019, but later elected in 2020.
”We know have to represent not only just the community, but of course the African American community because so many people are looking at this and were waiting for this," Tony said. "It took 105 years before we had an African American sheriff.”
Each man serving the public in different ways, but all connected with a shared vision: knowing that being the first carries high expectations.
