A bitter pill for a Broward Matriarch
By Don Valentine
The Sun Sentinel wrote a front cover article on the disappointment of John U. Lloyd’s widow of the park’s name change. She was upset about the change and the fact that no one had notified her. It was not gracious that no one in the Broward County administration exhibited this courtesy. Why this is worthy of a cover story is a mystery to me.
I suspect from the tenor of the article that there are clearly people at the Sun Sentinel that “Feel like the Black folk are getting to “uppity”! How dare those people raise enough awareness to change the name of the beloved John U. Lloyd Park, in order to recognize some criminals.
These technical thugs Dr. Von D. Mizell and Eula Johnson had the courage to challenge the Jim Crowe laws prohibiting Blacks from going to the beaches. They organized and lead “Wade-ins” on white only beaches near Las Olas. That took courage that John U. Lloyd never mustered.
The beach had been known for nearly 25 years as the “Colored Beach”. Lloyd, the county attorney for 30 years, did not step in to assist making all beaches accessible to the public. In fact he was a surreptitious state instrument to lubricate the devisiveness of segregation. One could say that it is ironic justice that the park has been renamed to recognize two civil rights stalwarts! Mrs. Lloyd smell the coffee; you have a Black President and it is now 2016.
