Wednesday, February 27, 2008

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

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Notes from the 2/20 Miami Community Advisory Committee Meeting

The following is a recap of the CAA meeting that was held tonight in Miami. The author is Imani McKinney, a 29 year old native Miamian who is deeply concerned with the goings on of most of Miami-Dade from the inner city to the boondocks to the glitz and glam of South Beach. He is an aspiring politico who would like to see his city advance to be a true world class city instead of the banana republic that we currently are. You may contact Imani at miamidilemma08@gmail.com

Tonight, at the CAA meeting, the discussion was as follows:

Introduction as to what the Community Action Agency was about and how they would help the West Little River/Brownsville/Model City Area

The members, including known politician Roy Hardemon, who is running for state rep district 109, were up in arms saying that before the CAA could go on with further business, they needed to take care of current business instead of being, as usual for the black community, pushed to the side without having our issues heard. The current issue at hand is the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) providing housing for those seeking affordable housing.

They would not allow the speaker to get on with the agenda. Instead, they demanded that the speaker get the gist of what they wanted. They could not move forward with new business without the old business being handled. They had people sign the HUD form to let people know they wanted the HUD situation handled before anything else could be progressed in terms of community activism. They were tired of being
pushed to the side for other minority groups.

There were about 20-30 people in attendance, quite a few looked to be businessmen. In order to be a part of this group, you have to live, own property, or work in the Brownsville/Model City/West Little River area.

The angry citizens who were in attendance, including, but not limited to African Americans of all ages. At least from ages 29 to their late 80s, judging from the look of a couple of women, one of whom WAS extremely vocal in making sure that the OCED Office of Community and Economic Development get in tune with the Community Action Agency (CAA) to make sure that both agencies were in tune with one another and that both agencies do not screw over the black community with their promises to enhance the growth of jobs and new businesses to launch in the areas surrounding Miami's black community, to make sure that the affordable homes that were promised to the community remains in tact. Though there has been progress with housing, such as the building of the new affordable homes in the former lots of the Scott-Carver projects that had been demolished for 6 years but the empty land still remained. The black community knows that the CAA hadn't done it's job: the land where the Scott projects used to reside, sat idly by while county money was being used for the developers' pockets rather than building homes, had to be taken over by Habitat For Humanity in order for the homes to be erected and for people to finally live in their own domicile rather than waiting for the county to move its good foot onto doing what it promised.

Hopefully, this new community organization that possibly can be borne into greatness can use its influence to finally make changes that our black leaders claim they were doing. Hey, our Latino brethren have tremendous clout. It's time for us to build our own and use it to great advantage: bringing a change in curriculum for our students so that they can be ahead of the class, and not just the expression. Make them see that having an education will lead them to great careers, instead of sitting around doing nothing, struggling when they don't have to struggle and decide they want to rob people. They don't have to. Making sure that we have different industries in Miami so that our students and even those who move to Miami can have different options to start their lives and careers. Making sure traffic is FINALLY alleviated by building the metrorail not only North and South but East and West so that way we don't have to sit through rush hour traffic.

But first thing is first: HUD has to make sure they do right by the black community. Granted, I wasn't at previous meetings to get the gist of what exactly was going on, I can only imagine from what I'd read in newspapers and how HUD hasn't made the commitment it promises in 2001 to the Scott project residents to ensure they would have their own homes in a fair amount of time. Once HUD is done with, then it's on to making sure our children are educated about life and book smarts, then encourage them to stay to stay in Miami for college or at the very least, go to a four year college, or 2 year then transfer to a four year to get their bachelor's degree, and to shoot further to get that Master's but at the very least get your bachelor's degree.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

SILENT PRESS RELEASE ABOUT “SILENT KILLER”

I’ve been thinking about what I wanted my first blog entry to be about. I’m a writer and usually thoughts just flow from my brain to white space freely. But when I sat down to write about my experiences here in Miami, I hit a brick wall. Sure I could talk about the predictable like the differences in weather, nightlife etc. But I came across something last week that got under my skin so badly that I just HAD to put it on blast so to speak.

I was reading e-mails and I came across one from a volunteer organization that I sometimes help out with some events. I scrolled through the e-mail, taking time to read the synopsis of each event because I didn’t want to miss a thing. I almost did miss something- though it wasn’t my fault. Buried in between Black Beach & Bluegrass was a little blurb about a health fair. I clicked the link that accompanied the text because it seemed interesting. Imagine my shock to find a website about an Aids Prevention event that already passed. In fact, the 2nd Annual Silence is Death Community March
took place on February 8, 2008.

Where was the press release about this event that is so crucial to our community? Where was the sound byte on the local news? Did I miss it? I am actually praying that it was only I under my solitary rock and the rest of Miami was out in force- marching and creating awareness about this deadly disease that is plaguing our community.

Silence is death. So why was this kept silent? I’ve heard promos for every event under the sun on the radio for the past few weeks. Who doesn’t know that Virginia Key Beach Park (Black Beach) is reopening? You’d have to be living in a vacuum not to know that the Miami International Film Festival will descend upon the city in the coming weeks. But why is something so relevant to our community kept on the hush?

I could spend the next few paragraphs creating bullet points and graphs. But by now we all know the most important fact of them all. AIDS is killing off African American’s at an alarming rate. We need to educate ourselves, know our status, and practice safe sex. Seems easy, but for some reason we just aren’t connecting the dots. That’s why movements like Black Aids Day are invaluable. But the information has to get into the hands of the masses. It doesn’t do us a bit of good when it’s under promoted, ignored and pushed under the rug in favor of more glamorous events, that, though important in their own way, don’t affect our health and well being.

I want a do-over. Let’s try again- once more with feeling. Maybe Black Aids Day should be semi-annual. This deserves a PR blitz of epic proportions. Check out http://www.blackaidsday.org/ . There are a ton of events taking place in Miami that are way under the radar. Let’s get involved with some worthwhile for a change.