Dispatch 14
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Backstory: Colored Town
Overtown is one of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods, founded at the start of the 20th century as “Colored Town,” for Black workers building and servicing streets, hotels and railroads. They had come from the Deep South and the Bahamas. Later from Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica. For decades, they would help build the South Florida that now is a world center. All that time, they struggled under the weight of Black Codes and Jim Crow.
As with other Black neighborhoods, “Colored Town” – renamed Overtown around the 1940s – was, by necessity, a closed economic system of Black-owned and Black-patronized groceries, medical services, and factories. Restaurants, banks, laundries, and real estate. Hotels, schools and churches. Residents of other area Black enclaves would come to transact business. And over the decades, white people would come from “across the tracks,” since segregation was one-way, to hear the greats of jazz at night clubs and venues.
In the 1960s, authorities planned highways through downtown Miami. Naturally, they picked routes that ran through the part with no political clout. Interstates 95 and 395 split Overtown. It descended from a thriving community to a depressed wasteland. Only in recent years have efforts begun to bring back its glory.
Dispatch 13 Bonus Answer:
Dispatch 13 said Bull Crews’ last name is an indirect nod to a Florida legend of the arts and asked you to guess.
The answer is legendary writer Harry Crews, who left us in 2012. I was privileged to take Crews' writing class in 1976 at the University of Florida. It was on Wednesday nights at his old home out in the woods. His rasp and his irreverence were such a refreshing break that we usually didn't mind so much when Harry would -- often correctly -- describe what we'd turned in as "crap," or would use a stronger word. The class was three hours, and halfway through we'd take a break for soft drinks and cigarettes (dark ages!!!). I’m sure Harry wouldn’t mind my divulging that we would take a vote on the substance we believed he predominantly was under that night. Alcohol usually won, but some nights we had to just throw up our hands. As I said the day he died, “So long, Harry. They don't make guys like you anymore.”
We’d have given partial credit if you said Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, the former NFL star who leads prison inmates in a football game against guards in the original 1974 film “The Longest Yard.” Crewe was played by, of course, Florida icon Burt Reynolds.
Talks
March 1, 4 pm: Hypocrite’s Row Launch! Books and Books, Coral Gables
March 11, 5:30 pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Fla at Historical Society of Palm Beach County
March 13, 2 pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Fla at Historical Society of Martin County, Elliott Museum
March 14, 2 p.m.: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Miami Pioneers and Natives of Dade.
March 17, 6 pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Boca Raton Historical Society
March 18, 2pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Palm Beach County Library, Hagen Road Branch
March 18, 6:30 p.m.: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Mandel Public Library, West Palm Beach
March 26, 6 pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Boca Raton Library
April 4, 1 pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at HistoryMiami.
April 15, 2 pm: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Deerfield Beach Historical Society
May 12, 6 p.m: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Delray Beach Historical Society
Sept. 27, 1 p.m: Talking Hypocrite’s Row and Prohibition in Florida at Hollywood Historical Society
Nov. 22: Look for me at the Miami Book Fair street fair!
Click to watch video:
Prohibition Museum, Savannah, Ga. (With Travis Spangenburg)
Prohibition in Florida (With Ben Brotemarkle, Florida Historical Society):
Learn the stories behind Hypocrite’s Row: https://t.co/aiSbJNnSYA
Watch more Hypocrite’s Row Videos: https://tinyurl.com/bddd69cp
See you on the beat!