Miami's Colored-Over Segregation:

Segregation, Interstate 95 + Miami's African American Legends

Nathaniel Q. Belcher

Nathaniel Belcher's Miami's Colored-Segregation: Segregation, Interstate 95 and Miami's African American Legends is an investigation into one of Miami's and perhaps the state of Florida's most historical prominent African American communities. While this publication celebrates the many triumphs of a once successful African American community with its foundation stemming from the production of rail lines, it reveals the conflict provoked by suburbanization and the construction of one of the most expensive infrastructural projects that is Interstate 95. Overtown's history began with landowner baroness, Julia Tuttle, and railroad magnate Henry M. Flagler's interest in the expansion of railroads south of the Miami River and the initiation of a new city. This new city would later grow into a world class beach resort city boasting recreation, an integral international hub, and a cultural point in exotic South Florida known as Miami. African Americans found great opportunity working for the railroads and the construction of the Biltmore Hotel and had established its own self sufficient, thriving community. Ella Fitzgerald would frequent its juke joints after performing in segregated Miami Beach clubs as well as a young Muhammed Ali could be seen jogging from the Elizabeth Hotel to fights in Miami Beach. Segregation was ruled unconstitutional in 1947 and while this ruling was a triumph in gaining momentum for the fight for racial equality, this would initiate urban conflict and the demise of Overtown.This ruling not only affected the community of Overtown, but many urban centers across the United States. The middle to upper class flight to the suburbs escaping urban density, racial conflict, and decay caused a need for connecting urban financial centers to the city's growing extremities. This flight in concert with inflated prices, redlining, and the influx of Cubans caused a swell in the density of Overtown which caused a significant demand for housing. This also began the deterioration of a destination and icon for African American achievement and sustainability. Shotgun homes were replaced with dense concrete structures maximizing on units and minimizing space. Poorly ventilated dense housing projects intertwined with developmental infrastructural projects including canals to carry waste and drain the Everglades created an urban jungle of discomfort and further separated Overtown from vital services. Under Eisenhower's Interstate initiative, Overtown was virtually split by the massive stoich and monumental [ 7 stories tall ] Interstate 95. Its action of carving and suspending itself above the landscape served as a visual cue of division ,obstruction, and the influence of interface. More interesting, interstate 95 is reduced to a scenic four lane palm lined boulevard in Miami's most affluent community, Coral Gables. Belcher reveals attempts to regain, rehabilitate, and connect multiple corridors split by Interstate-95. Palm tree lined center islands, gardens, outdoor theaters, pedestrian malls, and even folkloric villages have all been attempts at reclaiming this victimized space. These attempts are presented as urban sutures reclaiming a spatial nostalgia but not successful in obliterating or even blurring the boundary between the interstate and Overtown. The author argues for a consciousness in understanding the negative implications of infrastructure and its socio-economical divisive nature while unveiling its structure of power in its ability to evoke

permanence amongst the scape of Miami. It becomes a symbol of escape and destruction. Keeping in mind the political agendas of suburbanization that would later form other regions such as Fort Lauderdale and Homestead, Overtown has become desolate, defunct, and a symbol of what was and what will never be.This text reveals a common thread amongst all inner city urban centers and their minimal impact on infrastructural decisions due to the lack of socio-economic and political interface. Critique: I am attracted to the visual imagery that Belcher provokes about pre-integrated Overtown. Visions of broad thoroughfares lit with signs of theaters, hotels, and restaurants where African Americans seemed to enjoy a quality of life quite opposite of other regions of predominantly African American communities come to mind. He gains significant emotional traction as he African American Legends to the celebration of Overtown as a premier destination. The narrative in which he describes the evolution of the city and it's importance to the construction of railroads is integral in understanding the stability that already existed. Belcher takes a phenomenological and theoretical approach at allowing the reader to further understand the bridge. Not only do we understand the bridge as it relates to a strategy of escape and destruction but its hierarchy amongst the natural scape of Miami; the way in which it effects the horizon at dusk and dawn. My senses are awakened at visualizing this man-made intervention as I have too viewed this same moment with my own eyes living in the city of Miami. I-95 and projects alike not only reveal their divisive power in nature but their power as a structure of permanence amidst a shifting landscape. While I would argue that Belcher is phenomenal at attracting emotional investment in the story of Overtown, I would argue that Belcher does not challenge us with ways in which a solution can challenge the way the space is conceptualized. I was left with an unsolved problem and only marginal solutions carrying a tone of inevitable failure. In also understanding the contextual events that took place across America due to Eisenhower's interstate system do we begin to understand these implications not just in Overtown but threads of displacement that occurred within other regions across the United States. Were other regions successful in operating amid massive infrastructural projects? Overtown was a historical district for African Americans but history, as well as the text, reveals to us that the Cuban population in South Florida and Overtown substantially multiplied itself. How did practices of redlining, integration, and the building of Interstate 95 affect the Cuban population? The scope at which we problematize Interstate-95 is limited. Was Interstate 95 the only production that had adverse results on the development of Overtown? The publication reveals to us that Overtown did exist at the margin of an affluent community. What were the social interactions at and around this boundary? Was there tension, fear, or conflict? What strategies of interface prevented I-95 from towering over their communities? This publication presents Overtown as if it existed in a vacuum with no contextual influences outside of the Interstate 95. What about Overtown's relation to the Port of Miami, the financial district, Miami Beach and surround communities? Was this an isolated event in which an entire community was affected or were there others existing in the wake of its inception?