MIAMI – More than 200 people gathered last week for the rededication of historic Virginia Key Beach Park, once the lone public beach available to African Americans in Miami-Dade County.The upbeat ceremony, capped by a keynote speech by the Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder with Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was a celebration of black history and the accomplishments of the determined group of South Floridians who brought the beach back to life.
The rededication ceremony on Feb. 22 kicked off a weekend celebration that included a Family Festival on Feb. 23. The festival included children's activities and a performance by R&B artist Jeffrey Osborne.
The park officially opened to the public on Sunday from sunrise until sunset.
The events marked the triumph of a group of black citizens, led by the late M. Athalie Range, whose determination to reclaim a part of Miami's history led to the creation of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust.
The Trust worked successfully to save the park from developers.
“I'm sure when Mrs. Range said she wanted to reopen this park, people told her she was crazy,’’ Lowery said from the small stage beneath a canopy festooned on the inside with red, black and green. “But there’s bad crazy, and there’s good crazy. This here is good crazy.’’
The event drew a full complement of South Florida dignitaries, including: Congressman Kendrick Meek and his mother, former Congresswoman Carrie Meek; Bishop Victor T Curry, president of the Miami-Dade NAACP; the Rev. Joaquin Willis, president of the Collective Banking Group; mayors Shirley Gibson of Miami Gardens, Joseph Kelley of Opa-locka and Robert Vernon of the Village of Key Biscayne; Miami-Dade County Commissioner Carlos Giminez, who represents the district where the park and beach are located; Miami City Manager Pete Hernandez and a host of other civic, business and community leaders.
NBC 6 anchor Trina Robinson served as mistress of ceremonies.
Miami-Dade Commissioners Audrey Edmonsen and Barbara Jordan offered moving personal accounts, with Jordan evoking her own experiences of growing up in what was then segregated Dade County.
“It means the turning of a page,’’ Jordan said later, “because when you think about the Jim Crow era, it was such a painful time in our lives, and at the time it’s amazing that you didn’t realize the impact it had on your whole being as a person.’’
Jordan presented a proclamation to the Virginia Key Beach Trust board. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and City Commissioners Marc Sarnoff and Michelle Spence-Jones sent representatives but did not attend.
The ceremony also served as a tribute to Range, who spearheaded the redevelopment of the former
“Colored Beach.’’ Range and her late husband, Oscar Lee Range, participated in the desegregation movement that sparked the county’s decision to open the beach “for the exclusive use of Negroes’’ in August 1945.
“Mrs. Range was probably the most important part’’ of restoring the beach and park, said David Shorter, the Trust's executive director, “because there was never anywhere that I went with her that anyone would turn her down.’’
Shorter lauded Mrs. Range’s determination, and said she kept the project on task, before her death in November 2006.
“She gave us rules and regulations and made sure the standard was high, and I don't think without her we would have gotten here,’’ Shorter said.
The restoration of the park – a $40 million project, for which some $30 million has been raised so far, was also hailed as a victory for the public.
“This is a citizens’ victor,’’ said Gene Tinnie, who chairs the Trust board. “This is the realization of a whole effort that began in 1999 to reclaim, restore, and reopen historic Virginia Key Beach Park as an historical treasure and an environmental treasure.’’
Shorter agreed.
“I think it’s an opportunity for the community to realize that they actually have a voice,’’ Shorter said.
The park was closed by the city of Miami after it acquired the land in 1982. The Trust was created in 1999 to prevent part of the 80-plus-acre site from being turned over to private developers.
For Miami resident Almetha Blades, 64, who attended the event with her 88-year-old aunt, Olive Rolle, the opening was a chance to look back.
“This brings back memories of my mother my grandmother, my uncle and those who barbecued out here’’ during segregation, said Blades. “I really appreciate it. You just don't know what it does to my heart to see that it has come back.’’
Rolle remembers the park in its heyday, too, not for its place in the social order of the Jim Crow South, but for her family’s enjoyment of it.
“That time, it was beautiful,’’ she said.
And while the theme of segregation permeated the speeches and presentations at the ceremony, the remarks were tinged with hope.
“I feel a change in the air!’’ said an ebullient Lowery to the crowd, who greeted the 86-year-old Alabama native like a hometown hero. “And I'm not just talking about Obama … though I'm talking about that, too. This is change.’’
Curry, who is also the senior pastor at New Birth Baptist Church Cathedral of Faith International, said, “To see where we once were,…Segregation, discrimination … and [then] to see that we’ve made full circle, and now you look around here and you see black, white and Hispanic. So while we still have a long way to go, we are making progress.’’
Jordan echoed many in calling the park’s restoration personal.
“My family had to bring me here from Florida City if I wanted to enjoy the beach as a kid,’’ Jordan said. “But I was so excited, and enjoyed it so much. Those memories come floating back today, but they come floating back in a happy way, because I know that I’m not limited, I’m not a second-rate citizen.’’
For more information about the historic Virginia Key Beach Park, please log onto www.virginiakeybeachpark.net or call 305-960-4600.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email this
Comments (0)
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide commentsWrite comment
Show/hide comment formThis content has been locked. You can no longer post any comments.
