When some people picture Miami, they think of the sleek condo towers that make up its skyline, the beaches, the nightlife.

They see it as a culturally diverse destination.

But beneath its glittering surface is a legacy of separation and inequality. (THREAD)

When Henry Flagler needed workers to build his railroad and ritzy Royal Palm Hotel, he turned to Bahamian immigrants and Black migrants from Georgia and other points north.

When he wanted to incorporate the city, 162 of the 367 voters his company rounded up were Black.

But when it came to sharing the bounty from the booming Magic City they helped create, Black Miamians were shoved aside, relegated first to tents in a work camp and later shacks crammed into the unpaved streets of Colored Town. https://hrld.us/3hg5YJE 

Yes, some things have changed for the better.

A small Black elite class has emerged. Some major Miami law firms and corporations are led by Black executives and managers. And a Black middle class has established a foothold in Miami Gardens, Florida’s largest Black-majority city.

Pre-COVID, Overtown, a historic Black Miami neighborhood, also was enjoying a food-driven reawakening, driven in part by the promised opening of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster and the success of locally owned Lil Greenhouse Grill.

But so much else has not changed.

Today — decades after the peak of the Civil Rights movement — Miami-Dade’s Black population remains broadly on the outs.

To pick just a few salient points: The median income for Black households in Miami-Dade in 2018 was $38,015​, compared with $56,527 ​for households identifying as white, including white Hispanics.

Nearly a quarter of Miami’s Black population is impoverished, compared with the county-wide rate of 16%​.

And according to data compiled by the New York Times, Blacks in Miami-Dade now have a COVID infection rate that’s about 25% higher than that for either whites or Hispanics.

Those gaps, say historians, social scientists, activists and residents, are a consequence of longstanding, race-based disadvantages, policies and practices that effectively curtail business and job opportunities, and sharply limit home-ownership for Black Miamians.

Legally enforced Jim Crow segregation ended in the 1960s, but its impact in Miami-Dade seems to stubbornly live on. https://hrld.us/3hg5YJE 

The @MiamiHerald asked local Black business people what they think is needed to create a more supportive environment for Black businesses and professionals and to encourage greater success for future generations.

Here’s what they had to say: https://hrld.us/2EmvaPQ 

Reporters @AndresViglucci, @stclaudeii, @rjwile and @yadiraxlopez explore Miami’s history of disparity, how certain policies have brought us to where we are now, and what lies ahead.

If you value journalism like this, please consider a subscription. https://bit.ly/3hdDqR2