Overtown is one of Miami’s earliest historically black communities. The area’s first settlers were black workmen who followed the FEC railroad south as it was extended from Palm Beach to Miami. The area we now know as Overtown was originally called Colored Town and was designated by Henry Flagler and Julia Tuttle as the location for black laborers and their families to live. Colored Town was located just west of the Florida East Coast Railway System. Many black pioneers were also pioneers of the City of Miami, as one third of the charter members who voted for of the city’s incorporation on July 28, 1896, were black. Black men provided the primary labor force for building Miami and as a result the history of Overtown is inextricably and permanently linked to the story of Miami, “The Magic City”. The black laborers built the City’s hotels, laid the sewer lines, and other infrastructure components for the city. They also provided the important labor of laying down the rails for the first train. Strict racial segregation laws governed that blacks live separately from whites. The city’s black residents were allowed to purchase land only in that designated quarter of Miami’s municipal limits.
“Colored” Miami began to flourish as a community. By 1905 Colored Town’s Avenue G now known as NW 2nd Avenue and immediate areas had many first class stores and shops. The area grew to include restaurants, grocery stores, barber, beauty, tailor and dressmaker shops, doctor and law offices, a milliner, local insurance company, and a “soda water” bottling company called Cola Nip that was owned and operated by Benjamin Jenkins and Williams Sampson. The products from Cola Nip were distributed throughout South Florida.
Colored Town or Overtown became a self contained and self-sufficient bustling city that was alive and busy all day, every day full of successful businesses and spectacular entertainment. It became a tourist and entertainment destination not only for local blacks, but people of African descent from around the country. White tourists and white residents frequented this neighborhood to enjoy the entertainment, to partake of the exotic foods, and to listen to popular as well as gospel music. The area had several fine restaurants, a privately owned tennis courts, and several first class hotels. At least one national convention was held annually in Overtown, when sufficient hotel rooms, restaurants, cultural events, and entrainment were in full supply. The repeat business brought by visitors and tourists helped stabilize the economy in this community, which in turn promoted pride in a people who were self-motivated and self-sustaining.
Overtown was both nationally and internationally recognized . It was commonly referred to as “Miami’s Little Broadway” and rivaled the Harlem night scene of New York. Famous, artistes of the day such as Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, The Impressions, Brook Benton, Red Foxx and a host of others, performed and stayed in Overtown’s clubs and hotels. Some of the clubs that provided lively night life were The Sir John Knight Beat Lounge and Hotel, The Carver Hotel, The Rockland Palace, The Dorsey, The Marsha Ann and The Lord Calvert.
Overtown still remains today, a historic Miami neighborhood that is home to several historic landmarks and churches that include Greater Bethel AME, Mt. Zion, St. John Baptist and St. Agnes churches. Other historic landmarks are The Dorsey House (reconstructed home of the first black millionaire in Miami D.A. Dorsey), the Old Black Police Precinct (home of the only black courthouse and police station in Miami), the L.E. Thomas Building (home of the first black magistrate in Miami) and the Historic Lyric Theater (pictured below).
The Historic Lyric Theater built in 1913 by Geder Walker, is now called The Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater and Welcome Center Complex. Located at 819 NW 2nd Avenue in Overtown, the restored building is the oldest theater standing in Miami-Dade. It served the community as a vaudeville and movie theater for almost fifty years and was an anchor establishment in “Colored Town”. According to a 1915 article in the Miami Metropolis, the Lyric was “possibly the most beautiful and costly playhouse owned by colored people in all the Southland”. The theater is on the U.S. Secretary of Interior’s National Register of Historic Sites and continues to serve as an anchor to the Overtown community through expansion efforts that facilitate community outreach.