Miami. Jan Nijman
had started to exceed domestic in-migration, in no small part owing to accelerating migration from Dade to Broward by those who had little tolerance for Cuban immigrants. It was reflected in the changing numbers of non-Hispanic whites: they still grew by 29 percent in the 1950s but fell to 4 percent in the 1960s, and turned to -1 percent in the 1970s. It was a fundamental reversal of what had happened in the first half of the twentieth century. Even though Dade County continued to receive large numbers of immigrants from the rest of the United States, since the early 1970s net domestic migration has consistently been negative.
For Broward County things were different. It had never witnessed the excesses of Miami or Miami Beach and thus developed more steadily. It had lagged behind Dade County during the first half of the twentieth century but seemed to be catching up as its population quadrupled in the 1950s. The Broward economy in the 1960s did not mirror national trends of sustained expansion, but it was not as stultified as the Dade economy, and the Broward population still doubled. It did so again in the 1970s, with a growing number of migrants coming from Dade County. Broward’s steady growth was reflected in numerous incorporations, including Pembroke Pines, Lauderdale Lakes, Sunrise, Coral Springs, North Lauderdale, Parkland, Tamarac, and Coconut Creek.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement was gathering momentum across the country. As late as the early 1960s, segregation laws discriminated against South Florida’s blacks. Blacks were systematically kept from using public facilities such as beaches, swimming pools, parks, hospitals, transportation, and schools. Many private restaurants, hotels, bars, and stores refused service to them. Prior to 1945, they were not allowed on any of Miami’s beaches—beginning that year, Virginia Key had the one and only beach designated for “coloreds.” Because it was not connected to the mainland by bridge, people had to get there by rowing a boat.
Pervasive discrimination kept blacks from moving into white residential areas. Miami Beach was all white. The Beach police enforced a midnight curfew, and many famous black entertainers, like Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Billie Holiday, were forced to leave the island after their shows. They would usually perform again for a black audience in late night hours at the Lyric Theater or one of the other clubs on N.W. 2nd Avenue in Overtown, popularly referred to as Little Broadway. Famous blacks who visited Miami over the years, like W. E. B. DuBois and Zora Neale Hurston, too, would stay at hotels in Overtown. In 1963, when Harry Belafonte did a show at the Eden Roc on the Beach and actually spent the night there, it made local news headlines.
Overtown was the heart of South Florida’s black community. It was there in the Greater Bethel AME Church in 1958, in front of an “overflow audience,” that Martin Luther King campaigned to double the number of black registered voters.12 By 1950, Overtown was home to nearly half of Dade County’s black population and it had evolved into a tight-knit community. Most were working-class people, but there were many thriving small businesses and many families owned their homes.
But by the time American blacks finally won legal recognition of their constitutional rights, Overtown was heading into a sharp decline.13 The overall slowing of South Florida’s economy, and particularly the downturn in construction, had a negative impact from the early 1960s onward. As blacks started to gain access to stores outside Overtown, retail business in the district suffered. But irreversible destruction came with the building of two major highway flyovers right through the middle of Overtown. Construction of I-95 and I-395 began in the 1960s and was finished in 1976. The first split the area into western and eastern parts; the second cut through the larger eastern part and resulted in a north-south divide. The large spaces beneath the elevated expressways swallowed up a large part of the area and turned it into a wasteland. The local traffic circulation system turned dysfunctional. Total forced displacement was estimated at 12,000 people and another 4,830 decided to move out on their own initiative. In 1960, Overtown had peaked at a population of 33,000. By 1970, the community had lost more than half of its population and a third of its businesses. Home ownership dropped more than 50 percent.
Many people who left Overtown went to Liberty City, an area just to the north that consisted mainly of New Deal public housing projects from the 1930s. The creation of Liberty City had some additional, more insidious origins: Miami’s business and political establishment “conceived of this project as the nucleus of a new black community that might siphon off the population of ‘Colored Town’ and permit downtown business expansion. The availability of federal housing funds mobilized the civic elite, who seized this opportunity to push the blacks out of the downtown area.”14 In other words, Liberty City was invented in part to allow the expansion of Miami’s central business district into Overtown. With the construction of the highways and the demise of Overtown in the 1960s, Liberty City grew quickly but it never replaced the Overtown community of the past. Against the backdrop of the prolonged economic downturn of the 1960s and 1970s, it transformed into a ghetto. Opa Locka, which also experienced fast growth of its African American population during the 1970s, had a similar fate.
The achievements of the civil rights movement did not translate into economic gains for South Florida’s blacks. The protracted recession played its part but so did ongoing racial discrimination. The massive arrival of the Cubans seemed to make things worse still with increased competition for jobs and affordable housing. In addition, black concerns were overshadowed by public debates on the Cuban refugee crisis.15 Black discontent and frustration rose, as did racial tension.
The first time that things came to a boil was during the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach in August 1968—four months after the assassination of Martin Luther King. The situation became explosive when, shortly before the convention, George Wallace came to town to showcase his racist campaign for the presidency in front of an enthused crowd of white supporters. With the national media attention focused on Miami during the convention, African Americans organized a rally to protest racial policies of the Republican Party. The police went in, a confrontation ensued, and things turned violent. The Liberty City riot went on for several days, took four lives, and drew national attention.
On August 16, 1968, when things had quieted down, the black-owned Miami Times newspaper put it this way: “The riot last week came as no surprise to us. It should have not surprised any of you either. If you had only looked around you and seen the results of social injustice and inequality, surely you would have seen the disturbance coming.”16 Printed in a newspaper that was almost exclusively read by blacks, those words were not likely to reach the people who most needed to hear it.
The single most dramatic year in Miami’s history was probably 1980. Three different stories had been underway in South Florida for some time, with distinct origins, different characters, and following separate logics. As in the plot of a fashionable drama movie, the stories would gradually converge, then intersect and reach a common climax. That climax happened in the summer of 1980.
The first story was triggered in Cuba. On April 1, several thousands of Cuban asylum seekers occupied the Peruvian embassy in Havana. The event drew international attention and caused considerable embarrassment to the Cuban regime. After two weeks of failed negotiations and threats, Castro decided to open the port of Mariel to anyone who wanted to leave. The Cuban government allowed ships and boats from Miami and elsewhere to enter the port and pick up the human cargo. But the people who were gathered at Mariel were not only the dissidents who had sought refuge in the Peruvian embassy. Castro seized the opportunity to empty his jails and, it was said, mental hospitals, mixing them with the dissidents. The Cuban leader declared, “Those that are leaving from Mariel are the scum of the country—antisocials, homosexuals, drug addicts, and gamblers, who are welcome to leave Cuba if any country will have them.”17
Figure 13. Mariel refugees arrive at Key West on board the Lady Virgo, 1980. State Archives of Florida.
About 125,000 marielitos entered the United States over the next six months. Eighty percent ended up in Miami.18 The first groups of new refugees were greeted with sympathy and enthusiasm. But when the size of the stream of refugees started to register in South Florida, apprehension set in, and when it became apparent that Castro had used the event to rid himself of delinquents and