Miami, Florida in the 20th century
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miami, Florida's growth up to World War II was astronomical. During the early 1920s, the authorities in Miami allowed gambling and were very lax in regulating Prohibition, so thousands of people migrated from the northern United States to the Miami region. This created a construction boom and a skyline of high-rise buildings were built. Some early developments were razed ten years after their initial construction to make way for even larger buildings and the population of Miami doubled from 1920 to 1923 . The nearby areas of Lemon City, Coconut Grove and Allapattah was annexed in the fall of 1925, creating the Greater Miami area.
Contents |
[edit] Early Twentieth Century
This speculation boom started to waver because of building construction delays caused by the bulk of building materials overloading the transport system into the area. Sometimes a ship that brought in these supplies would ran aground and would block the port. These delays gave investors a chance to think again. Finally this transport choke-up got so bad that Miami's mayor declared an embargo on all incoming goods except food. Also that the cost of living had skyrocketed and finding an affortable place to live was next to impossible to find . This economic bubble was already collapsing when the catastrophic Great Miami Hurricane in 1926 ended what was left of the boom. According to the Red Cross there were 373 fatalities. Other estimates vary, since there were a large number of people listing as "missing". Between 25,000 and 50,000 people were left homeless, in the Miami area. At the time, Miami's hurricane was considered the country's greatest natural disaster since the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. Today the Category 4 storm ranks among twientyth-century United State hurricanes as the 12th deadliest in history . The Great Depression soon followed, in which more than sixteen thousand people in Miami became unemployed. A Civilian Conservasion Corps camp was opened in the area.
In the mid-1930s, the Art Deco district of Miami Beach was developed. On February 15, 1933 an assassination attempt was made on President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian anarchist, while Roosevelt was giving a speech in Miami's Bayfront Park. Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago, who was shaking hands with Roosevelt, was shot and died two weeks later. Four other people were wounded, but President-elect Roosevelt was not harmed. At his sentencing Zangara said, "I decide to kill him and make him suffer. I want to make it 50-50. Since my stomach hurt I want to make even with capitalists by kill the President. My stomach hurt long time." Zangara was quickly tried for Cermak's murder and was executed by the electric chair on March 20, 1933 in Raiford, Florida.
[edit] World War II
By the early 1940s Miami was recovering from the Great Depression, but then World War II came. Many Florida cities were affected by the war and went into financial ruin, but Miami was unaffected.
Early in the war, many American ships were attacked by German U-boats. Among the American ships was the Portero del Llano, which was attacked by a German submarine and sank within sight of Miami Beach in May of 1942. To defend against those U-boats, Miami was placed in two military districts, the Eastern Defense Command and the Seventh Naval District, which was designed to defend against those attacks.
In February 1942, the Gulf Sea Frontier was established to help guard the waters around Florida, and by June of that year, more attacks forced military leaders in Washington D.C to increase the numbers of ships and men to the army group. They also had moved the headquarters from Key West to the DuPont building in Miami, taking advantage of its location at the southeastern corner of the U.S.
As the war against the U-boats grew stronger, more military bases sprang up in the Miami area. The U.S Navy took over Miami’s docks and established air stations at the Opa-locka Airport and in Dinner Key. The Air Force also set up bases in the local airports in the Miami area.
Also, many military schools, supply, and communications facilities were established in the area. Rather than building large army bases to train the men needed to fight the war, the Army and Navy came to South Florida and took over hotels for barracks, movie theaters for classrooms and the local beaches and golf courses for training purposes. Eventually during the War, over five hundred thousand enlised men and fifty thousand officers trained on South Florida .
Because of the war, many servicemen and women returned to Miami, pushing the population up to almost half a million by 1950.
[edit] First Cuban wave
Following the 1959 revolution that unseated Fulgencio Batista and brought Fidel Castro to power, most Cubans who were living in Miami went back to Cuba but that soon changed however and many Cubans began traveling to Florida en masse with little or nothing they have after Castro began to take away freedoms and rights. The city, for the most part, welcomed the Cuban exiles but many Miamians were quite upset about this especially the African Americans, as their jobs were being replaced by Cuban workers. The school system struggled to absorb and educate the thousands of Spanish speaking Cuban children. Many of those Cubans later participated in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Many Miamians thinking that World War III was looming ahead left town while others started building bomb shelters and stocking up on food and bottled water. Many of Miami's Cuban refugees realized for the first time that it will be a long time before they get back to Cuba, if ever . In 1965 alone, 100,000 Cubans packed into the twice-daily "freedom flights" between Havana and Miami. Many of the exiles who escaped were middle class to upper class people who had all of their possessions taken from them, and they arrived in the U.S. with very little than the clothes on their backs. Most of the exiles settled into the Riverside neighborhood, which began to take on the new name of "Little Havana." This area emerged as a predominantly Spanish-speaking community, and Spanish speakers elsewhere in the city could conduct most of their daily business in their native tongue. By the end of the 1960s, more than four hundred thousand Cuban refugees were living in Miami-Dade County.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Attorney General’s authority was used to grant special permission (called “parole”) to allow Cubans to enter the country. However, parole only allows an individual permission to enter the country, not to stay permanently. In the case of Cubans, this dilemma was resolved by the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966. The Act provides that the immigration status of any Cuban who arrived since 1959 and has been physically present in the United States for at least a year “may be adjusted by the Attorney General to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence” (green card holder). The individual must be admissible to the United States (i.e., not disqualified on criminal or other grounds).
[edit] Social unrest
Although Miami was not really considered a major center of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, it did not escape the change that occurred. Miami was a major city in the southern state of Florida, and had always had a substantial African-American and black (to differentiate individuals of Caribbean origin) population.
In the 1970s, Miami was a news leader, resulting from response to a Dade County (now Miami-Dade) ordinance protecting individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. This was led by Florida orange juice spokeswoman, Anita Bryant. But on December 1979, police officers had pursued motorcyclist, Arthur McDuffie in a high-speed chase after it was said that McDuffie made a provoactive gesture towards a police officer. The officers claimed that the chase ended when McDuffie crashed his motorcycle and died. The coroner's report concluded otherwise. One of the officers testified that McDuffie fell off of his bike on a Interstate 95 on-ramp. When the police reached him he was injured but okay. The officers proceded to remove his helmet, beat him to death with their batons, put his helmet back on, and called an ambulance claiming there had been a motorcycle accident all while McDuffie was handcuffed. Eula McDuffie the victims mother said to the Miami Herald a few days later "They beat my son like a dog. They beat him just because he was riding a motercycle and because he was black." These actions were later admitted to by one of the officers during the trial. An all-white jury acquitted the officers after a brief deliberation.
After learning of the verdict of the McDuffie case, one of the worst riots in the history of the United States, the infamous Liberty City Riots, broke out. By the time the rioting ceased three days later, over 850 people had been arrested, at least eight white people and ten African Americans had died in the riots and property damage was estimated around one hundred million dollars . One more person, a sixty-five year old white woman named Mildred Penton died after being in a coma for five weeks after being struck in the head with a brick during the riot while returning from the Flagler Dog Track with her husband and daughter.
And just a few months earlier, in March 1980, the first black Dade County schools superintendent, Dr. Johnny L. Jones, had been convicted on grand theft charges linked to gold-plated plumbing. His conviction was overturned because his jury had been all white, and he was never retried. But in a separate case, he was convicted on misdemeanor charges of soliciting perjury and witness tampering. Many believed Jones was targeted because he was a African American man in power .
[edit] Later immigration
In 1979, Miami became the focal point of another group of exiles: Nicaraguans. Toppled by the Sandinistas, Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza fled to his Key Biscayne estate in July, only to be ordered to leave the country. He would be assassinated in Paraguay a year later. Meanwhile in Miami thousands of middle class Nicaraguans would settle in the southcentral part of the county, west of Miami International Airport in a suburb called Fountainbleau A Nicaraguan community flourished establishing business and schools. A street and a school were promptly named "Ruben Dario" after the well known Nicaraguan poet. In 1990, after the defeat of the communist Sandinsta regime, some of those refugees went back to Nicaragua to live under the new government of Violeta Chamorro, widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, a newspaperman murdered in Managua.
Later, the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 brought 150,000 Cubans to Miami in a single flotilla, the largest in civilian history. Unlike the previous exodus of the 1960's, most of the Cuban refugees arriving were poor. Castro used the boatlift as a way of purging his country of many criminals and the mentally ill. During this time, many of the middle class non-Hispanic whites in the community emigrated out of the city, often referred to as "white flight." In 1960, Miami was 90% non-Hispanic white; by 1990 it was only about 10% non-Hispanic white.
In the 1980s, Miami started to see an increase in immigrants from other nations such as Haiti. As the Haitian population grew, the area known today as Little Haiti emerged, centered around Northeast Second Avenue and 54th Street. In the 1990s, the presence of Haitians was acknowledged with Haitian Creole language signs in public places and ballots during voting.
Another major Cuban exodus occurred in 1994. To prevent it from becoming another Mariel Boatlift, the Clinton Administration announced a significant change in U.S. policy. In a controversial action, the administration announced that Cubans interdicted at sea would not be brought to the United States but instead would be taken by the Coast Guard to U.S. military installations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (or to Panama). During an eight-month period beginning in the summer of 1994, over 30,000 Cubans and more than 20,000 Haitians were interdicted and sent to live in camps outside the United States.
On September 9, 1994, the United States and Cuba agreed to “normalize” migration between the two countries. The agreement codified the new U.S. policy of placing Cuban refugees in safe havens outside the United States, while obtaining a commitment from Cuba to discourage Cubans from sailing to America. In addition, the United States committed to admitting a minimum of 20,000 Cuban immigrants per year. That number is in addition to the admission of immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.
On May 2, 1995, a second agreement with the Castro government paved the way for the admission to the United States of the Cubans housed at Guantanamo, who were counted primarily against the first year of the 20,000 annual admissions committed to by the Clinton Administration. It also established a new policy of directly repatriating Cubans interdicted at sea to Cuba. In the agreement, the Cuban government pledged not to retaliate against those who are repatriated.
These agreements with the Cuban government led to what has been called the Wet Foot-Dry Foot Policy, whereby Cubans who make it to shore can stay in the United States – likely becoming eligible to adjust to permanent residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act. However, those who do not make it to dry land ultimately are repatriated unless they can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to Cuba. However, because it was stated that Cubans were escaping for political reasons, this policy did not apply to Haitians, who the government claimed were seeking asylum for economic reasons.
Since then, the Latin and Caribbean-friendly atmosphere in Miami has made it a popular destination for tourists and immigrants from all over the world, and the third-biggest immigration port in the country after New York City and Los Angeles. In addition, large immigrant communities have settled in Miami from around the globe, including Europe, Africa, and Asia. The majority of Miami's European immigrant communities are recent immigrants, many living in the city seasonally, with a high disposable income.
[edit] 1980s
In the 1980s, Miami became the United States' largest transshipment point for cocaine from Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. The drug industry brought billions of dollars into Miami, which were quickly funneled through dummy businesses and into the local economy. Luxury car dealerships, five-star hotels, condominium developments, swanky nightclubs, and other signs of prosperity began rising all over the city. As the money arrived, so did a violent crime wave that lasted through the early 1990s and that has begun to die down in the 21st century. A classic fictional example of this crime wave is the 1983 gangster film, Scarface. The popular television program Miami Vice, which dealt with counter-narcotics agents in an idyllic upper-class rendition of Miami, spread the city's image as America's most glamorous subtropical paradise. This image began to draw the entertainment industry to Miami, and the city remains a hub of fashion, filmmaking, and music.
During the 1980's and early 1990s many well-known personalities visited Miami, among them, Pope John Paul II who visited in November of 1987 and held an open-air mass for one hundred and fifty thousand people in Tamiami Park, Queen Elizabeth II and three United States presidents among them Ronald Reagan who had a street named after him in Little Havana . There was a few controversies though among them Nelson Mandela 1989 visit to the city. Mandala had praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for his anti apartheid support ABC Nightline. Because of that, the city withdrew its official greeting and no high ranking official were on hand to welcome him. That led to a boycott by the African American community of all Miami tourist and convention facilities until Mandela received an official greeting but all efforts to resolve it failed for months resulting in an estimated loss of over ten million dollars .
[edit] 1990s and today
In the 1990s, various crises struck South Florida: drug wars, tourist shootings, Hurricane Andrew which caused more than twenty billion in damage but went just south of the Miami area, and the Elián González uproar which was a heated custody and immigration battle in the Miami area in 2000. The battle concerned a six-year-old boy who was rescued from the waters of the coast of Miami. The Cuban and United States governments, his father, his Miami relatives, and the Cuban American community of Miami were involved. The climactic stage of this prolonged battle was the April 22, 2000 seizure of six-year-old Elián by federal agents, which drew the ire and criticism of many in the Cuban-American community. Hundreds of protesters, many of whom vowed to block any attempt to seize Elián and were outraged at the raid, poured out into the streets of Little Havana and demonstrated. Car horns blared, demonstrators turned over signs, trash cans, newspaper racks and some small fires were started. Rioters jammed a 10-block area of Little Havana. Shortly afterwards, many Miami-Dade County businesses closed, as their owners and managers participated in a short, one-day boycott against the city, attempting to affect its tourism industry. This included employees of airlines, cruiselines, hotels, car rental companies, and major retailers refusing to head to work. Elián González returned to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel González, on June 28, 2000. The controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations occurred in 2003. During the 2003 meeting in Miami, the Free Trade Area of the Americas was met by heavy opposition from anti-corporatization and anti-globalization protests.
On June 27, 2005 former popular Miami city commissioner Arthur Teele, Jr. walked into the main lobby of the Miami Herald headquarters, dropped off a package for columnist Jim DeFede, and told the security guard to tell his wife Stephanie he 'loved her' before pulling out a gun and committing suicide making national headlines. His suicide happened the day the Miami New Times, a weekly newspaper, published salacious details of Teele's alleged affairs, including allegations Teele had sex and used cocaine with a transsexual prostitute. At the time, Teele was being investigated by federal authorities for fraud and money laundering for allegedly taking $59,000 in kickbacks to help a businessman get millions of dollars in contracts at Miami International Airport. Teele was suspended from his job in 2004 by Gov. Jeb Bush after being arrested for trying to run a police officer off the road. Teele was also charged in December 2004 with 10 counts of unlawful compensation on charges he took $135,000 from TLMC Inc., and promised they would be awarded lucrative contracts to redevelop neighborhoods in Miami. Teele was also found guilty in March of 2005 for threatening an undercover detective.
