Overtown – Part 2
By Don Valentine
Purvis Young is a celebrated artist and Miami native. His art is in museums and the private homes of celebrities like Jane Fonda, Damon Wayans and Dan Aykroyd. After learning of the “Freedom Walls” in Detroit and Chicago, Purvis decided in 1972 to create his own public mural at the intersection of Northwest Third Avenue and 14 Street in Overtown.
In the ‘40s and ‘50s hip venues such as the Knight Beat Club at the Lord Calvert Hotel, the Harlem Square Club, and the Lyric Theater ensured that Second Avenue lived up to the “Little Broadway” moniker. Through the years, Overtown jammed to the sounds of Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., and many others. From Josephine Baker and Ella Fitzgerald to Lena Horne and Aretha Franklin – all found a welcoming audience in Overtown. Black intellectuals from Dr. King, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X and Zora Neale Hurston found a therapeutic break here.
The good times came to an end, when I-95 and I-395 paved over “Harlem of the South.” Black Archives.org estimates Overtown’s population dropped from about 40,000 to about 10,000. The obliteration of the “Central Negro District (the city’s official designation for Overtown) started in 1965. The razing of a vibrant community was exacerbated when Metrorail was routed directly through the community causing further dislocation. Housing issues.com. analyzed the decimation and concluded, “These same forces that destroyed or altered the physical structures also weakened the social underpinnings of the community. Businesses folded, churches closed, and many residents were forced to leave. Overtown today is characterized by vacant lots, high unemployment rates and over-crowded rundown housing. A few small businesses struggle among the abandoned and boarded up buildings.”
Buried under I-95, “Harlem of the South” is now one of Miami-Dade’s poorest communities. These days, the majority of people who live there are those who have very few choices. Rent is cheap and public subsidized (“Project”) housing is abundant. Johns Hopkins University Professor of History N.D.B. Connolly commented, “Displacements were intentional. They represented, for growth-minded elites, successful attempts to contain Black people and to subsidize regional economies with millions in federal spending.”
The spirit of Overtown is coming alive again as efforts to preserve and restore historic sites come to fruition. Support for Overtown’s revitalization is derived from the Overtown Advisory Board, city of Miami and the Community Redevelopment Agency. To learn more, read Professor Connolly’s award-winning book A World More Concrete.