My Day At The Historic Re-Opening of Virginia Key Beach (Part I)

The History:

About Historic Virginia Key Beach Park

Listed on the U.S. Park Service National Register of Historic Places, the beach has a rich cultural history and played a significant role in the U.S. Civil Rights movement of South Florida. Historic Virginia Key Beach Park is a treasured living legacy of land, history and beauty, past and future. From the 1920’s to the Civil Rights era, Historic Virginia Key Beach Park was a cherished getaway, religious sacred site and social gathering haven for Miami’s Colored Community. The Virginia Key Beach Park Trust has now been entrusted to oversee the restoration and development of the parkland site. Historic Virginia Key Beach Park will offer a glimpse of the past, an appreciation for nature and hope for the futures.

In 1945, a few Miami activist staged a “Wade-In” at Baker’s Haulover Beach, an all white beach to protest the segregation of Miami beaches. The participants, who included notable community leaders, demanded that a public beach be made available to African-Americans in Miami-Dade County. The City of Miami, in compliance with the 1896 Supreme Court Case, Plessey vs. Ferguson (“Separate but Equal,”) deemed Virginia Key Beach Park on Key Biscayne as a “Colored Beach.”

Why Virginia Key Beach?

The beach was on of the last stops on the Underground Railroad. Here, Pirates ships would either transport slaves to the Bahamas, or other surrounding Caribbean islands; or recruit African-Americans into their crews, providing refuge from American slavery.

In the early 1900s Blacks boarded ferries downtown to sail to Virginia Beach, which was informally know as “Bears Cut” (The beach is actually located along Bears Cut, the channel that separates Virginia Key from Key Biscayne). During the historic period, the name of the beach was Virginia Beach as opposed to its current name, Virginia Key Beach Park.

During the WWII the United States Navy, instituting segregation policies, have trained African-American and Hispanic- American service men who were not allowed to enter the “same waters” as white soldiers.

Virginia Beach, already meaningful and cherished amongst African-Americans, unofficially became the recreational center for the African-American community. Many African-Americans traveled to the shoreline by boat for picnics, swimming, congregating and respite from the racially infused South. For many reason, Virginia Beach was a logical and natural selection for the establishment of Miami’s only “Colored Beach.”

Visit our website at www.virginiakeybeachpark.net for more information.

Web site: http://www.virginiakeybeachpark.net/index.asp