Miami: A Young but Turbulent History
Black Miami: The Early Years
Despite its northern influence, Miami had a southern police and sheriff’s department that kept it solidly segregated well into the 1960s. Even white Jews were barred from certain Miami Beach hotels until after World War II, an irony considering Jews eventually became a majority on the beach.
But even though Miami’s blacks were treated like second-class citizens, they have long played a role in turning Miami into the Magic City. It was black voters, who made up a third of the vote in 1896, which enabled Miami to become incorporated in the first place. And it was black laborers, mostly Bahamian immigrants, who cleared out the mangroves from the swamp and built the railroad, hotels and streets that turned Miami into a winter playground. It was also Bahamian settlers that established South Florida’s first black community in Coconut Grove four years before Miami became a city.
The 1900 census showed that 40 percent of Miami’s citizens were black, most of them foreign born, mainly from the Bahamas. And for the next twenty years, more than 10,000 black Bahamians immigrated to Miami. By 1920, Bahamian blacks made up 16 percent of the city’s population. Even back then, Miami was a haven for immigrants.
Once Miami was incorporated, blacks were told they could only buy property in a small area north of downtown. The white people called it “Colored Town”. It later became Overtown.
By the 1930s, Overtown was a thriving entertainment district for black performers known as “Little Broadway”. After all, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Count Blasie and Ella Fitzgerald may have been allowed to perform on Miami Beach over the years. Up until the 1960s, they weren’t allowed to sleep in its hotels. So they stayed in Overtown and gave after-hour performances that lasted until daylight.