How Susan B. Anthony crashed the Great American Raft Race in Lake Worth Beach
- Jul 7
- 4 min read
HOURS BEFORE FIREWORKS lit up the sky, two Lake Worth Beach activists sparked a Fourth of July kerfuffle on water.
With thousands watching the start of the annual Great American Raft Race, a banner unfurled from the end of a Bryant Park pier above the Lake Worth Lagoon: “NO SELF RESPECTING WOMAN SHOULD WISH OR WORK FOR THE SUCCESS OF A PARTY THAT IGNORS HER SUCCESS – Susan B. Anthony 1872 and 1894.”
It was a sign of the times, past and present, a message especially worth sharing on Independence Day, said the bed-sheet banner’s creators, activist Carole Fields and artist AnnaMarie Windisch-Hunt.
“We had our backs to the people, cheering the races on. We weren't yelling things out. We just had the banner dropped,’’ Fields said.
Some people were not amused.
Minutes after the race’s first heat, Fields said, a person with a “security” shirt approached the two women on the boardwalk.
“Somebody behind me said, 'I'm sorry ma’m, but you’re going to have to remove your banner,’’’ Fields recalled. “I said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Somebody has complained.’’’
Fields, 87, didn’t budge.
As the security person walked away, she pointed to a “First Amendment is my right to free speech” button attached to her shirt and said, “I can be here. It’s public property.’’
Five minutes later, she said, two Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies arrived. Mayor Betty Resch showed up a little later. As Windisch-Hunt greeted the mayor, Fields spoke to the deputies, whose presence “was very oppressive. It was very intimidating,’’ she said.
“They said, ‘You're going to have to take the banner down.’ And I gave them my same argument: ‘No, I don't. No, I won’t’ and told them I have a right to be here,’’ she recalled. “Eventually they went away.’’
Standing above the banner, Fields and others cheered the raft racers for the next hour before retrieving their sign and leaving as rain fell.
And that might have been that.
But later that night, in a post on her personal Facebook page, Fields mentioned the encounter with deputies. It wasn't long before fireworks went off on social media, with commenters weighing in on whether a “political” banner was appropriate at a community Independence Day event.
Fields said the banner was "informational, not political.’’ But the president of the Neighborhood Association Presidents Council, which hosts the annual raft race, felt otherwise.
“Very sad that you would chose (sic) a community event to make a political statement,’’ Craig Frost wrote under Fields’ post.
Frost, who did not return a message seeking comment for this story, also wrote, “It was very disrespectful to all the people that made this community event happen and made sure that no participants displayed anything political, there is a time and place, this was not it!!’’
Most comments defended Fields, including some written by former Mayor Jeff Clemens, a former state representative.
“She harmed no one and exercised her American right to free speech and protest,’’ Clemens wrote in a reply to Frost.
“People said the same things you just did about all important protests throughout American history,'' he added. "Those were all the wrong time and place, too, according to detractors. Thankfully this is America and the Constitution outweighs your outrage.’’
Fields, who has performed with the group Raging Grannies of South Florida, said she has no regrets about unfurling the banner at one of the city’s biggest public events.
“This was pointing to problems they were having when Susan B. Anthony started calling attention to inequities and I think we are having the same problems today,’’ she said.
“We decided since we had a captive audience there, maybe we needed to do something drastic.’’
She did not rule out unfurling the banner at another public event.
“We’re going to try to figure out where we can go next with it,’’ she said.
“We have to do it. We have to get it out there. Otherwise we are not being listened to and we are taking our beautiful, wonderful life here for granted and we can't take it for granted.’’
(This story was updated at 9:25 a.m. July 8, 2025, to clarify that Mayor Betty Resch greeted the protesters a few minutes after deputies had arrived on the scene.)
© 2025 ByJoeCapozzi.com All rights reserved.
Please help support local journalism by clicking the donation button in the masthead on our homepage.
About the author
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, the birth of the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. View all posts by Joe Capozzi.
