the JF blog

Project Rewind | j-school | Black Florida Project

[thejfblog]

Miami Urban Rail: A History of Transit in Dade County

A series of local rail networks, passenger rail, streetcars, and rapid transit, have connected urban Miami since its founding in 1896.

1920 Florida East Coast Railway station map for Dade County. (U.S. Railroad Administration)

The Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) Florida Special service connected New York City and northern areas of Dade County (at Ojus, Fulford, Arch Creek, Biscayne, Little River, Lemon City, and Buena Vista) to central Miami in 1896, and to southern areas of the county (Southside, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, South Miami, Kendall, Cutler, Goulds, Princeton), terminating at Homestead and Florida City, in 1905 (and Key West 1912-1935). Passenger rail operated to Homestead until 1963, when an FEC strike halted service through downtown. FEC intercity rail, between Jacksonville and North Miami, resumed briefly from 1965 to 1968.

Video of a 1967 FEC intercity trip between North Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

The early-20th century monopoly FEC had on passenger rail service to Miami ended when the Seaboard Railroad Orange Blossom Special reached Miami (via Opa-locka and Hialeah) at Allapattah in 1927. Seaboard was replaced by Amtrak in 1971, and it serviced Allapattah station on Northwest Seventh Avenue until 1978.

1954 Seaboard map of their Miami terminal in Allapattah. (Seaboard Railroad)

From 1906 to 1940, 17 electric streetcar lines connected central Miami to surrounding areas, run by four operators. The Miami Electric Railway connected what is now Flagler Street to an FEC depot on Northeast Sixth Street from 1906 to 1907. The Miami Traction Company operated a Flagler Street streetcar from 1915 to 1919 that connected areas west of the Miami River, to downtown and Buena Vista at Northeast 36th Street via Northeast First and Second Avenues.

Map of the 1928 streetcar network in Miami laid over the 2026 street grid. (Miami Beach Railway Company, Coral Gables Rapid Transit)

From 1920 until 1940, the Miami Beach Railway Company operated several streetcar lines, and the most expansive streetcar network in Miami. It carried traffic between downtown Miami to Miami Beach via the newly-built County Causeway (now the MacArthur), Buena Vista (now Wynwood) via Northeast Second Avenue and Northwest Second Avenue to 36th Street, Overtown via Northwest Third Avenue to 20th Street, and Allapattah via Northwest Seventh Avenue to 38th Street. Coral Gables Rapid Transit streetcars connected downtown Miami to Coral Gables, via South Miami Avenue and Coral Way, from 1925 to 1935. 

In 1979, Metropolitan Dade County built an elevated rapid transit line, Metrorail, to connect downtown Miami, near the site of the old FEC depot, to the Dadeland Mall near Kendall Drive (Southwest 88th Street), and began service in 1984. Metrorail connected passengers along the old FEC line in South Dade to stations near the former Seaboard terminus in Allapattah, and north to Hialeah by 1985. Metrorail connected to Miami airport in 2012.

An elevated downtown people mover, Metromover, opened in Miami in 1986. Tri-Rail opened a commuter rail, from Miami to West Palm Beach, on the old Seaboard line in 1989.

The FEC Brightline service resumed Miami intercity rail service to West Palm Beach, and later Orlando, in 2018.

2026 map of rapid transit, commuter rail, and intercity rail service in Miami.

[thejfblog]

Labor Day Hurricane and End of the Overseas Railroad

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane that struck the Florida Keys was one of the most destructive in U.S. history, and ended Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad that connected Miami and Key West.

A rescue train derailed by storm surge in the Middle Keys, beached corpses of veterans who built the Overseas Highway, and the billowing smoke from the funeral pyres of storm victims. (public domain)

On the evening of Monday, September 2, 1935, over 400 people died when an 18-foot storm surge inundated the Middle Florida Keys, near Islamorada. According to the National Weather Service, 185 mile-per-hour winds leveled buildings, bridges, trains, and Florida East Coast (FEC) railroad tracks that linked 44 islands to the Florida mainland, ending 23 years of rail service.

Upper and Lower Matecumbe Keys were inundated and stripped barren, when the storm came ashore at 5 p.m., and its eye at 10 p.m., during high tide. 259 World War I veterans who were building the Overseas Highway drowned. A Miami-bound rescue train carrying veterans was washed off its tracks around 8 p.m., killing all its passengers.

Shoddy construction on the islands disintegrated in the storm’s extremely low barometric pressure. Few structures in the impact zone remained intact.

Map of the storm’s position on September 3, 1935. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Dozens of dead drowned in Florida Bay from the relentlessly pounding waves. Excess fatalities on Upper and Lower Matecumbe Keys forced state officials to initiate on-site cremation and mass funeral pyres. The storm’s surge carried an Islamorada mother and child 40 miles across Florida Bay, before they were beached at Cape Sable.

At landfall, the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the strongest to ever hit the U.S., and one of only three catastrophic Category 5 storms to strike the U.S. in the 20th century; the others, Camille in 1969 and Andrew in 1992.

In 1937, the Florida Keys Memorial was dedicated in Islamorada to the victims of the 1935 storm. The Overseas Highway opened in 1938.

Watch the 1997 documentary “Hurricane ‘35: The Deadly Deluge.” (Miles Associates Productions)

[thejfblog]

WQAM Tiger Radio: Pop Music and Youth Culture in 1960s Miami

Miami's WQAM was the soundtrack for South Florida youth in the 1960s.

WQAM radio bumpers featuring John Lennon of The Beatles, Mary Wilson of The Supremes, and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys. (Storz Broadcasting)

During the 1960s, WQAM DJs like Roby Yonge, Jim Dunlap, Charlie Murdock, and Rick Shaw gave voice to baby boomer teen culture on transistor radios from Jupiter Inlet to Key West. In the era of four TV stations and rotary telephones, WQAM, under its “Tiger Radio” branding, was a place where young people found community.

The station played the latest hits from artists like The Beatles, The Supremes, The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Association, that charted on the station’s “Fabulous 56” Survey, when the radio and record stores like Spec’s in South Miami had a pulse on local music trends.

WQAM DJ Rick Shaw met The Beatles on the tarmac at Miami International Airport on February 13, 1964. (Storz Broadcasting)

DJ Rick Shaw (born James Hummel) joined WQAM in 1963, and quickly became their lead announcer. He was the first in Miami to play The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and hosted WQAM coverage of the Beatles invasion of Miami in February 1964, broadcasting daily updates to hundreds of thousands of listeners.

During his peak from 1964 to 1968, more South Floridians listened to Rick Shaw’s radio show from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. or 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. than any other, where he played the day’s top requests, and high schoolers interned at WQAM’s downtown Miami studios at the McAllister Hotel, and later Miami Beach.

In Miami primetime, audiences got the latest from the afternoon Miami News newspaper, on TV from Ralph Renick and Wayne Fariss, and on the radio from Rick Shaw.

WQAM DJ Rick Shaw on-air segments from 1964-1966. (Storz Broadcasting)

WQAM is Florida’s oldest commercial broadcast station, established under its current callsign in 1923. It adopted its famed Top 40 format under the ownership of Todd Storz, who bought the station in 1956.

Before Todd Storz died suddenly in 1964, aged 39, his Storz Broadcasting Company expanded to affiliates in cities like New Orleans, St. Louis, and Minneapolis. Storz Top 40 stations popularized sponsored contests, with giveaways like cash prizes, cars, and tickets to events like the Beatles 1964 show at the Deauville, and Jimi Hendrix at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival.

Emergent tastes in consumption of pop music in the late 1960s, along with changes at WQAM, and a shift to stereo FM radio, marked the end of the station’s massive relevance.

Rick Shaw left WQAM in 1975, and deejayed in Miami until his retirement in 2007. Storz Broadcasting folded when the station was sold in 1985, and transitioned to sports talk by 1996. Despite the changes, nothing will eclipse WQAM’s Tiger Radio heyday as the most happening music station in South Florida.

WQAM on-air segments from the late 1960s. (Storz Broadcasting)

[thejfblog]

Fifth Street Gym: A History of Boxing in Miami

Miami’s Fifth Street Gym is where Muhammad Ali became “The Greatest.”

Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) at Fifth Street Gym in 1961. (Flip Schulke)

New York boxing enthusiasts Chris and Angelo Dundee opened Fifth Street Gym in 1950 at Fifth Street and Washington Avenue in South Beach.

The facility came to prominence in 1960, with Rome Olympic gold medalist Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay, born 1942, Kentucky), when he signed a professional boxing contract with Louisville promoters and moved to Miami in December. He trained with Angelo Dundee, and initially stayed at an Overtown hotel, before relocating to a home in Brownsville.

The Beatles and Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) at Fifth Street Gym on February 18, 1964. (Charles Trainor for The Miami News)

In the span of a week in February 1964, Ali met The Beatles on February 18 at the Fifth Street Gym, after the band's second performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. On February 25, Ali defeated Sonny Liston at the Miami Beach Convention Center, and became the world heavyweight champion. He celebrated the win with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke at the Hampton House.

Ali beat Liston in a rematch on May 25, 1965, as the tall, athletic, and bombastic figure captivated an increasingly global audience, from the U.S. to the continent of Africa, as a symbol of Black pride.

Muhammad Ali (as Cassius Clay) after he knocked out Sonny Liston at the Miami Beach Convention Center on May 25, 1965. (Neil Leifer)

By 1967, Fifth Street Gym became a hangout for celebrities like Frank Sinatra, who shot an opening scene for his Miami crime caper, “Tony Rome,” at the venue. In April, after Ali successfully defended his title against Ernie Terrell at the Astrodome in Houston, he was drafted to the Vietnam War.

Ali declined enlistment by declaring, "No Viet Cong ever call me a nigger." His declaration, amid civil rights protests and the Summer of Love, especially resonated with disillusioned Black youth. The decision to decline enlistment resulted in him being stripped of his boxing titles.

While Ali was banned from boxing and appealed a conviction for draft evasion, he toured U.S. colleges and universities as a paid speaker, and became a counterculture icon.

Muhammad Ali on the April 1968 cover of Esquire. (Carl Fischer)

In April 1968, Ali posed as the martyr St. Sebastian, sacrificing his career for activism, on the cover of Esquire magazine. The magazine hit newsstands as MLK was martyred in Memphis, and Otis Redding’s posthumous hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” topped the Billboard Hot 100, months after he died in a plane crash.

Ali was banned from boxing, until his March 8, 1971 comeback versus Joe Frazier, that he lost at Madison Square Garden. Shortly after the Frazier fight, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously recognized Ali’s conscientious objector status to the Vietnam War. The court decision allowed for Ali’s boxing reinstatement. He moved his training to Deer Lake, Pennsylvania in 1972.

Excerpt from the 2008 WLRN documentary “Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami.”

Muhammad Ali continued training with Angelo Dundee, and beat Frazier in their final October 1, 1975 matchup, the “Thrilla in Manila,” in the Phillippines. Ali retired from boxing in 1981.

The original Fifth Street Gym was demolished in 1993. Chris Dundee died in 1998, Angelo Dundee in 2012, and Ali in 2016.

Other champions trained at Fifth Street Gym, like Carmen Basilio, Willie Pastrano and Sugar Ray Leonard. But its lore, as the “University of Boxing,” started in 1960, when an 18-year-old Cassius Clay moved to Miami, and became Muhammad Ali: “The Greatest.”

[thejfblog]

“Iceman” by Drake: A Trilogy

Drake answered his critics by dropping three albums: “Iceman,” “Maid of Honour,” and “Habibti.”

Collage of album artworks for “Iceman,” “Maid of Honour,” and “Habibti.” (OVO Sound)

On May 15, 2026, Drake released his ninth, tenth, and eleventh studio albums simultaneously, “Iceman,” “Maid of Honour,” and “Habibti,” respectively. The Toronto-born entertainer debuted his previously announced “Iceman,” with two surprise albums, shortly before midnight, Toronto time, in a livestream broadcast of a visual album of music videos titled “Iceman Episode 4” on CTV, a Canadian broadcaster.

The trilogy marked his first set of releases since his 2025 “Some Sexy Songs 4 U” joint album with his OVO Sound label artist PartyNextDoor, and first set of solo works since his 2023 album, “For All the Dogs.” Drake announced “Iceman” in July 2025, amid his feud with Kendrick Lamar, and debuted its first single, “What Did I Miss.”

Drake built buzz for the album over several months, with the release of visual promotional vehicles, Iceman episodes 1, 2, and 3. The promotion culminated on April 20, 2026, when Drake installed an ice sculpture in downtown Toronto with a cash prize that revealed the “Iceman” album’s confirmed May 15, 2026 release date.

Music video for “Janice STFU” on “Iceman.”

“Iceman” is a rap-heavy album with 18 tracks that plays for an hour and eight minutes. “Maid of Honour” is a dance album with 14 tracks that plays for 45 minutes, and is reminiscent of his 2022 solo release, “Honestly, Nevermind.” “Habibti” is a rap-R&B album with 11 tracks that plays for 36 minutes. The trilogy has a combined 43 tracks with a total playtime of two hours and 29 minutes.

With the “Iceman” trilogy, Drake reportedly fulfilled his contractual obligations to music conglomerate UMG for three remaining albums, including “Iceman,” and alludes to going independent on tracks like “Make Them Pay” and “B’s on the Table” on “Iceman.” Features on the trilogy include Future, 21 Savage, Sexyy Redd, and Central Cee.

Other select tracks on “Iceman” include “Ran to Atlanta,” “Janice STFU,” and “Burning Bridges;” on “Maid of Honour:” “Hoe Phase” and “True Bestie;” and on “Habibti:” “Slap the City” and “I’m Spent.”

A day after the release of the “Iceman” trilogy, Spotify named Drake the platform’s most-streamed artist of 2026. “Iceman” debuted atop the Billboard 200, and became Drake’s sixth consecutive album this decade to lead U.S. sales and 15th overall, breaking his tie with Jay-Z for most No. 1 albums by a male solo artist.

“Habibti” and “Maid of Honour” also debuted in the #2 and #3 positions on the U.S. album chart, respectively, making Drake the first artist in Billboard history to simultaneously debut three best-selling albums.

“Iceman” single “Janice STFU” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 and became Drake’s 14th No. 1 on the chart, with Drake replacing Michael Jackson’s record for a male solo artist.

The “Iceman” trilogy solidifies Drake’s place as one of the most prolific rappers of all-time.

“Iceman”

“Maid of Honour”

“Habibti”

[thejfblog]

Black Floridians Politically Silenced

Black Floridians face less democracy in the post-Civil Rights era than ever, since Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Marching on the Miami-Dade County school board with historian Dr. Marvin Dunn in Miami’s Overtown, supporting comprehensive Black history education in Florida public schools, on August 16, 2023. (newswire)

It started with Florida's 2018 citizen-initiative petition for the Voting Restoration Amendment, known as Amendment 4, which was estimated to potentially enfranchise up to a million citizens with nonviolent criminal records, mostly Black men. It passed with over 64% of the statewide vote, the same year Ron DeSantis eked out an election win to succeed Rick Scott as governor.

In 2019, Gov. DeSantis signed SB 7066 into law, a measure backed by the Florida Legislature, led by a Republican Party supermajority, that added fines and fees to Amendment 4, which critics likened to a poll tax.

In 2021, in the wake of global outrage following the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, Gov. DeSantis signed into law bills that aimed to suppress uprisings, like those that happened in Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville.

In 2022, while the Trayvon Martin Foundation commemorated a decade after the unprovoked killing of the Miami Gardens teen, Gov. DeSantis singlehandedly redrew Florida's congressional map to eliminate a Black voter access seat centered on Tallahassee, home to Florida’s Black descendants of slavery.

In 2023, Gov. DeSantis said Black people benefited from slavery, while signing into law legislation that restricted Black history education in Florida's K-12 schools and colleges. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Naples (originally New York), a Black Republican running to succeed DeSantis, affirmed DeSantis, and said the Black family unit did better under segregation.

In 2024, Gov. DeSantis then used taxpayer funds to run ads against citizen initiatives for abortion access and cannabis, issues addressing immediate health and criminal justice disparities for Black people. Both measures garnered majority support from voters, but not enough to meet Florida's extraordinary 60% citizen initiative passage threshold.

In 2025, Gov. DeSantis signed a law heavily restricting the citizen-initiative process, one of the only mechanisms Floridians have to bypass the supermajority in the legislature to pass laws. The governor clamped down on the collective voice of voters to change state government.

Then in 2026, at the behest of President Donald Trump, Gov. DeSantis redrew Florida's congressional map (again), which he said was intended to add Republican-leaning seats to Congress by cracking minority voting access districts in Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville, and limit Black voting power in populous and heavily-packed Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and the Palm Beaches (Miami metro).

Maya Angelou famously said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, time and time again, treated Black people, their lives, their education, their healthcare, their voting rights, and their freedom, as disposable.

Is the governorship of Ron DeSantis leaving a better Florida for the demographic with the longest and most brutal history of repression in the state, better than it was? The obvious answer, for Black Floridians, is "no."

The political calculation, it seems, is to draw Black Floridians off the map, and, if they are tightly-packed, like in South Florida, ghettoize them in a sea of non-Black representation. Modern Black Florida is the most reliable, yet most historically-suppressed voting bloc in the state, and its current alignment with the Democratic Party stems from a number of key moments:

In February 1964, Democratic Miami Congressman Claude Pepper was the sole Florida congressmen of 12 to support the Civil Rights Act

In June 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. marched for desegregation in St. Augustine, during the city's 400th anniversary celebration

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Historically, Florida's Black voters were aligned with President Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party, as was the state's first and only Black congressman for over a century after Reconstruction, Josiah T. Walls, elected from 1870-1876, while culturally conservative white Southerners were Democrats, or “Dixiecrats.”

The parties realigned in the 1968 election with President Richard Nixon, where his narrow win depended on appealing to Southern white resistance to integration. Culturally conservative Dixiecrat Democrats, following figures like Barry Goldwater and Strom Thurmond, became Republicans, while Black people in Florida, federally enfranchised under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, mostly became post-Civil Rights-era Democrats.

Modern attacks on Democratic Party representation in 2026, as authorized by the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais, are veiled attacks on the voices of Black people to participate in their government. It is illegal to be racist, so discrimination must be coded by political party, and the most reliable voting bloc of the Democratic Party are Black voters, and specifically Black women, as was the case in the 2024 U.S. general election.

In Florida's 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Black voter turnout trended downward, amid assaults on the lives of Black people and culture.

Black Floridians experienced decades of expanded social access for working families, the poor, elderly, disabled, and otherwise disaffected through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, under Democratic Govs. Reubin Askew, Bob Graham, and Lawton Chiles, many programs which continued to be funded under Republican Govs. Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, and Scott.

Only in recent years has an administration moved to restrict the voices of all Florida voters, and especially muzzle the voices of Black Floridians, with such obvious and willful intent.

In January 2027, after eight years, Florida will have a new governor. For particularly Black Floridians, that day can’t come soon enough.

[thejfblog]

Student Protests at Columbia, Kent State, and Jackson State

Student protests at Columbia University in 1968 and 2024 toppled presidents, and 1970 demonstrations at Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State College in Mississippi helped end a war.

Photo collage of the Low Library at Columbia University during the 1968 protests, students killed in May 1970 demonstrations at Kent State and Jackson State, and Columbia’s Butler Library during 2024 protests. (public domain)

Columbia protests represented discontent that, ultimately, aided in unseating university president Grayson Kirk and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and analogously Minouche Shafik and Joe Biden in 2024. Both Columbia protests were influenced by U.S. involvement in unpopular wars in Vietnam and Gaza, and turbulent national elections. Each uprising led to campus shutdowns, NYPD arrests, and incumbent administration turnover, both in New York and Washington.

Columbia president Grayson Kirk resigned under pressure after 1968 protests, as did Minouche Shafik, under similar circumstances, in 2024. Johnson and Biden's vice presidents respectively succeeded them to become party nominees for president in 1968 and 2024, and both lost their bids in the general election.

On May 4, 1970, four Kent State students were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard, who fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds on protests against President Richard Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. 19-year-old Allison Krause, 19-year-old William Schroeder, 20-year-old Sandra Scheuer, and 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller were killed. The state-sanctioned massacre of dissenting youth in Ohio prompted the largest national student strike in U.S. history the next day, at over 400 colleges and universities.

Neil Young composed the 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young hit, "Ohio," in response to the events at Kent State.

On May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College in Mississippi, two youths were killed and a dozen injured, when Jackson and Mississippi state police fired at least 140 rounds in 30 seconds on a dormitory, amid campus unrest. 21-year-old Jackson State student Phillip Gibbs, and 17-year-old high schooler James Green were killed.

None of the guardsmen or policemen involved in Kent State or Jackson State faced criminal conviction.

A main point of the protests was the draft age starting at 18, and voting age at 21. In 1971, a year after the tragedies in Ohio and Mississippi, the 26th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the voting age to 18. Richard Nixon ended the draft in 1973, and resigned in disgrace in 1974. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, pulled out of Vietnam in 1975.

The protests at Columbia, Kent State, and Jackson State showed the costs and consequences of challenging government authority on U.S. college campuses.

Jackson State University documentary from 2012 on the events of 1970.

[thejfblog]

Peak Tyrese

In the 1990s, Tyrese was him.

Tyrese modeling for Guess Jeans and Tommy Hilfiger.

Tyrese’s career started in 1994 at 15, singing in a Coca-Cola commercial. His voice landed him a deal with RCA Records, and led to the 1998 release of his eponymous debut album, with singles like “Nobody Else,” “Sweet Lady,” and “Lately.”

Tyrese’s dark complexion, striking looks, and muscular build also caught the attention of modeling agents, who placed him in print advertisements for Guess Jeans and Tommy Hilfiger in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“Tyrese”

In 2001, Tyrese made his acting debut in the John Singleton film “Baby Boy,” replacing Tupac Shakur in the lead role.

Peak Tyrese defined sexy swagger for the new millennium.

Music video for “Lately.”

[thejfblog]

Joe Lang Kershaw: A Florida Trailblazer

In 1968, Florida State Rep. Joe Lang Kershaw of Miami was the first Black person elected to the Florida Legislature in the 20th century.

Joe Lang Kershaw photographed addressing the Florida House in 1971, and in an undated official portrait. (State Library and Archives of Florida)

Kershaw was born in Live Oak in Suwannee County in 1911. He attended Florida A&M University (FAMU), where both his parents met and graduated in 1903, and where he graduated with a history degree in 1935. While studying in Tallahassee, he worked as a janitor in the Florida Legislature.

By the 1950s, Kershaw was a high school civics teacher and athletics coach at Miami’s segregated Black high schools, including Booker T. Washington in Colored Town, now Overtown, where he coached Miami Dolphins perfect-season football player Larry Little in the early 1960s.

Amid Miami Congressman Claude Pepper’s pioneering support for federal civil rights legislation, in 1968, Kershaw was elected to the Florida House of Representatives representing parts of Dade County. He was the first Black person elected to serve in the Florida Legislature since 1889.

Kershaw was joined in the state legislature in 1970 by Miami’s first Black woman lawyer Gwen Sawyer Cherry. The two worked to advance equity for Miami’s Black communities, particularly through Kershaw’s chairing of the Florida House elections committee, where he worked to enhance voting access for historically underserved inner-city neighborhoods like Overtown, Brownsville, and Liberty City.

Florida House of Representative 1968 and 1970 class photos, featuring Kershaw in 1968, and Cherry and Kershaw in 1970.

Kershaw and Cherry partnered in leadership through Cherry’s untimely death in 1979, and the end of his term in 1982. He mentored a new crop of Black lawmakers, including Gwen Cherry’s legislative successor Carrie Pittman Meek, who herself would be elected in 1992 among Florida’s first three Black congressmen in over a century.

Kershaw’s legislative achievements in his 14 years on the Florida Capitol include introducing legislation which led to the formation of the Florida Human Rights Commission, now the Florida Commission on Human Relations, the state agency tasked with enforcing federal and state civil rights laws. In 1971, he sponsored legislation which led to the 1976 creation of the FAMU Black Archives and Research Museum.

Democratic State Rep. Joe Lang Kershaw of Miami (right) pictured alongside Democratic State Rep. Lew Whitworth of Miami voting to repeal the cane pole tax during Florida’s 1971 legislative session.

Kershaw was called “Cane Pole” on the Florida Capitol for his advocacy to exclude cane pole fishing, popular in mainly poor and rural areas, from the state fishing license tax, a measure which became law in 1976.

Kershaw died in Miami in 1999. His namesake, Joe Lang Kershaw Jr., a lawyer, died in 2026 in Tallahassee. The annual Florida Legislative Black Caucus Kershaw-Cherry Luncheon honors the legacies of Miami’s trailblazing state lawmakers, and provides scholarships to support rising leaders.

[thejfblog]

Top 10 Springtime Hits of 1968

LBJ declined a second run for the U.S. presidency to make way for RFK who, like MLK, was assassinated in the early months of 1968.

LBJ’s March 31, 1968 Oval Office address, MLK “Mountaintop” speech on April 3 in Memphis, and RFK’s Indianapolis speech on April 4.

In 1968, over a half-million U.S. soldiers were in Vietnam amid the war’s deadliest year. Following the devastating Tet Offensive on January 30, CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite traveled to Vietnam. On his February 27 broadcast, Cronkite, considered the country’s most trusted television presenter, declared the war unwinnable. On March 16, RFK declared his intention to challenge incumbent LBJ in the 1968 Democratic primary.

On March 31, 1968, LBJ delivered an Oval Office address where he declared that he “would not seek [nor] accept” the Democratic Party nomination for a second outright term, after succeeding JFK in 1963 and subsequently winning in a landslide in 1964. Days later, on April 3, MLK delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, where he foreshadowed his death the following day.

MLK was assassinated the evening of April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, supporting the “I Am a Man” sanitation workers strike in Memphis. News of King’s killing was broadcast within the hour across the U.S., and riots broke out in dozens of U.S. cities.

These were the most popular songs in the U.S. for the 12 weeks in 1968 entirely within the months of March, April, and May (springtime in the Northern Hemisphere), according to their frequency and peak chart position in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.

1. Otis Redding, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” (8 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #1)

2. Bobby Goldsboro, “Honey” (8 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #1)

3. Paul Mauriat, “Love Is Blue” (5 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #1)

4. Archie Bell & the Drells, “Tighten Up” (4 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #1)

5. Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, “Young Girl” (8 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #2)

6. Dionne Warwick, “(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls” (4 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #2)

7. Simon & Garfunkel, “Mrs. Robinson” (3 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #2)

8. The Box Tops, “Cry Like a Baby” (6 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #3)

9. The Monkees, “Valleri” (5 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #3)

10. The Rascals, “Beautiful Morning” (4 weeks in the top 10, peaked at #3)

At a campaign stop in Indianapolis on April 4, RFK extemporaneously delivered news of MLK’s death to a shocked and bereaved Black audience, a speech regarded as his greatest moment. On April 9, 1968, Aretha Franklin sang the eulogy at MLK’s funeral in Atlanta, and on April 11, LBJ signed the Fair Housing Act into law in MLK’s tribute.

On April 23, student protests on the campus of Columbia University in New York’s Morningside Heights escalated, in response to a campus gym proposed for construction in neighboring lower-income Harlem, demonstrations which prompted the resignation of university president Grayson Kirk.

In April 1968, “The Graduate” soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel initiated the first seven weeks of a nine-week run as the bestselling album in the U.S. on the Billboard 200. On June 5, 1968, RFK was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after giving his victory speech in the California Democratic primary.

RFK’s demise signaled the last of the hope of the Sixties, and precipitated the rage that ended it.

[thejfblog]

Data: Antebellum Black Florida

Florida’s antebellum economy was based on the bondage of Black people near the capital of Tallahassee.

Leon County plantation houses (clockwise from top-left) The Grove, Brokaw-McDougall House, Bannerman Plantation, and the Rutgers House built by George Proctor.

Florida became a U.S. territory, annexed from Spain, in 1821, and Tallahassee was established as its capital in 1824. In 1830, the U.S. Census counted 34,730 people in 15 counties, concentrated in Middle Florida, an area between the Suwannee and Apalachicola rivers. Black people in 1830 Florida, almost entirely bondaged, numbered 16,345 or 47%. Adjoining Jackson, Gadsden, Leon, and Jefferson counties made up over half the state’s population, with Leon, home to Tallahassee, the most populous.

In 1840, the U.S. Census counted 54,477 people in 20 counties, with the population of Black people counted 26,534, or 49%. Leon was the state’s most populous county in 1840 at nearly 11,000, accounting for a fifth of the state’s population.

Florida county map at statehood in 1845. (Sidney Edwards Morse)

The 1850 Census, the first after Florida statehood in 1845, was the first enumerated for each county in Florida by race and gender. Of the 87,445 people counted in Florida’s 28 counties in 1850, the census recorded 40,242 Black people, or 46%. Gadsden County accounted for a tenth of the state’s population in 1850 with 8,784 enumerated, 4,887 or 56% of whom were Black. Leon County continued as Florida’s most populous in 1850, with 11,442 enumerated, and 8,249 or 72% of them Black.

In 1860, 140,424 people were counted in Florida’s 38 counties, 62,677 or 45% of them Black. Adjoining Jackson, Gadsden, Leon, Jefferson, and Madison counties hosted 36% of the population. In 1860, five Florida counties were majority-Black: Alachua, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, and Marion. These five counties registered thousands of new Black voters during Reconstruction, and elected Florida’s first Black congressman, Josiah T. Walls.

Clip from “Invisible History: Middle Florida’s Hidden Roots.” (WFSU)

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Sinatra’s Miami: “Tony Rome” Universe

Miami was Frank Sinatra’s kind of town, and backdrop for his fictional exploits as the eponymous “Tony Rome” in the 1967 Gordon Douglas film, and its 1968 sequel “Lady in Cement.”

Frank Sinatra and Jill St. John on the Julia Tuttle Causeway in “Tony Rome.”

Here are five local landmarks featured in the films:

Vizcaya (Tony Rome)

Keystone Islands, North Miami (Tony Rome, Lady in Cement)

Gulfstream Park (Lady in Cement)

Crandon Park Marina (Tony Rome, Lady in Cement)

Fontainebleau Hotel (Tony Rome, Lady in Cement)

Trailers for “Tony Rome” and “Lady in Cement.”

Map of Greater Miami in “Tony Rome” and “Lady in Cement.” (Tableau Public)

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South Florida’s Segregated Black Hospitals

Physicians William B. Sawyer and James F. Sistrunk established the first dedicated hospitals to treat Black patients in segregated midcentury South Florida.

Drs. Sistrunk and Sawyer.

Dr. Sawyer (1886-1950) opened Christian Hospital in 1921 in Colored Town (now Overtown), the first hospital dedicated to serving Black people denied health care at segregated Miami City (now Jackson Memorial) Hospital. Christian Hospital was originally a 12-bed wooden facility erected with private funding from him, fellow Black physician Dr. Solomon M. Frazier, and cross-racial patronage. The facilities were replaced, expanded, and eventually moved to Miami’s Brownsville section in 1959, before closing in 1982.

Christian Hospital at its opening in 1921, and in Brownsville (undated).

In 1921, Sawyer built the upscale Mary Elizabeth Hotel in Colored Town, run by his wife Alberta. The first class, three-story, 91-room facility offered in-suite inter-com and plumbing to Black wealthy clientele barred from whites-only establishments. In 1927, Dr. Sawyer platted the Centerville housing development, and in 1949, began construction of the Alberta Heights apartment complex, both in Brownsville. In 1945, Sawyer and Frazier were among a coalition that prompted Miami city government to open Virginia Key Beach to Black residents, who were barred from swimming at Miami Beach until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Dr. Sawyer was father to Gwen Sawyer Cherry (1923-1979), Miami’s first Black woman lawyer (admitted to the Florida Bar in 1965) and the first Black woman elected to the Florida Legislature (1970-1979).

Provident Hospital in Fort Lauderdale.

In 1915-founded Broward County, Dr. James F. Sistrunk (1891-1966) established a medical facility for Black people denied entry at Broward General Hospital. Sistrunk, a World War I veteran, began his Ft. Lauderdale medical practice in 1922 and, with Dr. Von D. Mizell, started Provident Hospital in 1938. Sistrunk was credited with delivering over 5,000 babies in his 44-year practice. Sistrunk and Mizell backed NAACP protests that ended segregation at local beaches in 1962, until federal desegregation in 1964, when Provident Hospital closed.

Both doctors, who respectively graduated from Meharry Medical College, dedicated their lives to service. Gwen Cherry Park in Miami and Sistrunk Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale each honor their legacies.

Footage of Miami’s Christian Hospital in 1954.

[thejfblog]

I Never Loved a Singer the Way I Love Aretha

Aretha Franklin commanded respect as the “Queen of Soul” for the 1967 Summer of Love and the disillusionment of 1968, with breakout albums, “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” and follow-up, “Lady Soul.”

Album artwork for “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” and “Lady Soul.”

Franklin soared to superstardom as her cover of the Otis Redding song “Respect” topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart in late May and early June, Memorial Day weekend, 1967, amid the height of a youth counterculture in the U.S., coinciding with protests for civil rights, against the Vietnam War and the draft, and the so-called “Summer of Love” in San Francisco.

The daughter of famed Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha was born in 1942 in Memphis and raised in Detroit. A prodigy pianist, she rose to prominence as a gospel vocalist, at age 14, with her debut album “Songs of Faith.” At 18, Franklin turned to secular music and moved to New York, where she signed a six-year deal with Columbia Records.

She was recruited by Jerry Wexler and signed to Atlantic Records by 1967, and was taken to producer Rick Hall at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record her label debut, “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.”

“I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You”

Franklin was joined by then-husband and manager Ted White for a week of recording, backed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, also called the Swampers. She recorded much of the 11-track, 32-minute album in five days, before the band finished it with her in New York.

It was released March 10, 1967, and peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart, and topped the U.S. R&B chart for 14 weeks, becoming Franklin’s first album to sell over a million copies, and “Respect” her first million-selling single.

“I Never Loved a Man” propelled Aretha Franklin to superstardom and started her on a streak of 1967 hits that included “Baby I Love You” and the Gerry Goffin-and-Carole King-penned “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” the latter which served as the lead single to her groundbreaking 1968 follow-up album, “Lady Soul.”

“Lady Soul”

Recorded with the Swampers in Muscle Shoals throughout 1967 and completed at year’s end, the 30-minute, 10-track album subtly captured the growing anticlimactic disillusionment of the Civil Rights Movement.

“Lady Soul” was released January 22, 1968, days before the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The devastating attack on U.S. troops by the Viet Cong signaled a quagmire during on-location reporting by CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite. The journalism influenced LBJ to decline nomination to a second full-term as president in a televised announcement he made a week before MLK was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis.

Weeks after she won her first of 18-career Grammy awards for “Respect” at the 1968 ceremony, Franklin sang “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” at MLK’s funeral. This happened as “Lady Soul” peaked at #2 on the U.S. album chart, topping the U.S. R&B chart for 16 weeks.

Official audio of “Ain’t No Way” by Aretha Franklin.

Among the standouts on “Lady Soul” is the B-side to third single “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone,” the haunting classic “Ain’t No Way,” penned by her sister Carolyn. The song, which became a soul music staple, features the soaring operatic background vocals of Cissy Houston, mother of Whitney.

The whirlwind that began for Aretha in 1967 culminated with a June 28, 1968 cover story for Time magazine, published a few short weeks after the June 6 assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

Aretha Franklin on the cover of “Time.”

Franklin was dubbed “The Sound of Soul” by Time, as her hit single “Think,” penned with the husband she soon divorced, dominated U.S. airplay and firmly established her as the “Queen of Soul.”

The rest, they say, is history. After her 1970s peak, she had a career resurgence in the 1980s with her 1986 U.S. pop chart-topping duet with George Michael, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” followed by her 1987 induction as the first woman in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.

Franklin firmly fixed her place as the preeminent singer of the Civil Rights Movement and its legacy, when she sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at the first inauguration of Barack Obama, on January 20, 2009, to the largest U.S. inauguration crowd in history. It was her third such honor, as she sang at inaugurations for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

For the chilly occasion, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, she wore a bowtie church hat by milliner Luke Song, which became an iconic moment in fashion history that, for some, outshined her captivatingly resonant vocals.

Aretha Franklin performing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at the first inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009, at the U.S. Capitol.

During President Obama’s consecutive eight-year term, Franklin befriended the Obamas, singing for them for events at The White House and the Kennedy Center.

Her cultural legend extended beyond her 2018 passing, aged 76. An interview she gave in 2014 to The Wall Street Journal became an irrepressibly memeable touchstone, filled with shady quips like, “great gowns, beautiful gowns,” in reference to Taylor Swift’s talent — who she sang “Happy Birthday” to later that year — and the dismissive, “I’m going to pass on that one.”

Franklin influenced millennial singers like Ariana Grande, whose rendition of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” caused Franklin’s family to invite her to perform it in tribute at her memorial service. Her authorized biopic, starring Jennifer Hudson, was released in 2021 to critical acclaim.

Aretha Franklin may be gone, but her music remains. Long live “The Queen of Soul.”

[thejfblog]

The Beatles vs. The Supremes: Comparing Five of Their No. 1 Hits

The Beatles and The Supremes amassed a cumulative 32 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1964 to 1970, becoming the two most successful bands in pop music.

Cindy Birdsong, Diana Ross, and Mary Wilson flank Paul McCartney after the Supremes' debut at Talk of the Town in London, January 22, 1968.

The groups made no secret of their mutual affection. The Beatles covered Motown classics like The Miracles’ “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” on their 1963 debut album, “With The Beatles,” and The Supremes covered The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” on their 1964 album “A Bit of Liverpool.”

They replaced one another in the top spot three distinct times during their concurrent six-year run: Christmastime 1964, when the Supremes’ “Come See About Me” overtook “I Feel Fine” by the Beatles. In 1965, the Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love” halted the run of the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” as the U.S. pop singles chart leader. Finally, in 1968, Diana Ross & the Supremes’ “Love Child,” the group’s 11th No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, dethroned “Hey Jude” by the Beatles, their 16th No. 1.

Here are five head-to-head selections of the Beatles’ and Supremes’ respective No. 1 hits:

Round 1: "She Loves You" by The Beatles (1964, second #1) vs. "Baby Love" by The Supremes (1964, second #1)

Round 2: "I Feel Fine" by The Beatles (1964, sixth #1) vs. "Come See About Me" by The Supremes (1964, third #1)*

Round 3: "Eight Days a Week" by The Beatles (1965, seventh #1) vs. "Stop! In the Name of Love" by The Supremes (1965, fourth #1)*

Round 4: "Hey Jude" by The Beatles (1968, 16th #1) vs. "Love Child" by Diana Ross & the Supremes (1968, 11th #1)*

Round 5: "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles (1967, 14th #1) vs. "Someday We'll Be Together" by Diana Ross & the Supremes (1969, 12th #1)

Key: Asterisk (*) denotes instance where the noted Supremes song replaced the noted Beatles song at #1.

[thejfblog]

Sinatra’s Miami: In Photos

Miami was Frank Sinatra’s kind of town in the 1960s, and that’s the way it was.

It’s where he and Rat Pack buddy Sammy Davis Jr. integrated the Fontainebleau Hotel, hosted Elvis Presley and Tony Bennett, gallivanted at the Eden Roc and a pad in South Beach. It’s where he shot the film noir cult classic “Tony Rome” and its sequel “Lady in Cement,” at locations from Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, to supper clubs and strip clubs in Miami, homes in North Miami and Coconut Grove, and hotels, motels, and hole-in-the-walls down to the Florida Keys, opposite leading ladies Jill St. John and Raquel Welch. It’s where he and his wife Mia Farrow were fashionably late showstoppers on the social scene.

Miami was Sinatra’s kind of town, and he ran it his way.

(Image and video credits: Terry O’Neill, John Dominis, newswire archives, ABC)

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Florida’s Black Electorate and the Impact of Shirley Chisholm

Florida’s Black and African American voters survived suppression after the Civil War to remain an intact bloc through the 1960s, testing their influence in 1972 with Shirley Chisholm.

Photo collage (from center and top-left) of Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, and Kamala Harris, at the 1972, 1984, 2008, and 2024 Democratic National Conventions.

Shirley Chisholm, the first Black or African American woman elected to Congress from Brooklyn in 1968, broke gender and racial norms in her 1972 presidential campaign. She was the first woman to seriously seek a major party nomination for U.S. president, and broke ground when she was the first Black person to appear on a statewide ballot in Florida’s Democratic Party presidential preference primary.

A century before Chisholm’s rise, Jonathan C. Gibbs served in Florida's 1866 Constitutional Convention, which enabled the voter registrations of 7,337 Black Florida men from 1867 to 1868. Gibbs was the first Black or African American person to serve in statewide political office in Florida, as Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Instruction. In 1870, Josiah T. Walls was the first Black person from Florida elected to Congress. Gibbs died in office in 1874, and Walls was unseated in 1876 due to racist backlash to Reconstruction.

From 1876 to 1972, 96 years, not a single Black or African American person appeared on a congressional or statewide ballot for political office in Florida.

Over the following decades, both legal and extralegal tactics were used to suppress the political power of Black people in Florida, often with the threat of death. This played out when many of Florida's pioneering Black and African American World War I veterans and their families were massacred on Election Day, November 2, 1920, in Ocoee, and on New Year's Day 1923 in Rosewood. Poll taxes and literacy tests further institutionalized the disenfranchisement of the marginalized.

2020 documentary on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre. (WFTV)

While voter suppression succeeded in keeping Black and African American people out of statewide political life in Florida for much of the 20th century, educational institutions such as Florida A&M University in Tallahassee and Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, the fraternities and sororities of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, and social service organizations like the NAACP, NCNW, and National Urban League, demonstrated community resilience amid systemic alienation.

Florida U.S. Sen. Claude Pepper was an early supporter of civil rights and desegregation, under Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. He lost his 1950 statewide bid for reelection partly for his support of racial equality efforts. A year after Pepper’s unseating, the Brevard County NAACP president and his wife, Harry and Harriette Moore, were murdered Christmas Day 1951 for their efforts to register Black people to vote.

The great nadir for Black political involvement in Florida ended in 1964, when Pepper, now elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from a district covering Miami’s racially diverse urban core and northern suburbs, became the sole vote from Florida’s congressional delegation of 12 to vote in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Martin Luther King Jr. galvanized final support for the law’s passage in June St. Augustine protests with local dentist Dr. Robert Hayling. A year later, Pepper and King stood alongside one another at The White House when President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1972, Shirley Chisholm united Florida’s historically concentrated Black voting bloc in Greater Tallahassee, and emerging Black voting bloc in populous Greater Miami. Her 1972 statewide primary proved a resurgence of Black political power in the state.

Chisholm’s strategy to focus on Florida’s reliable Black voters provided a template for the Black and African American statewide candidates who followed her. Jesse Jackson built on Chisholm’s Florida electoral strategy in his 1984 and 1988 Florida Democratic Party presidential preference primary runs. Barack Obama successfully executed and expanded Chisholm strategies in his 2008 campaign, and subsequent 2012 reelection, garnering statewide majorities from the overall electorate in each race.

In Kamala Harris’s unsuccessful 2024 run, in which she frequently invoked Chisholm, she garnered 43% of the statewide vote, exceeding Chisholm’s 3% statewide vote share by 40 points.

Florida’s Black and African American electorate, forcibly silenced after Reconstruction for a century, has a long view of the state’s history of discrimination and suppression over generations.

A Democratic Party voting bloc since the Republican Party’s subtly racist “Southern strategy” elected Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968, Florida’s post-civil rights era Black voters demonstrated the power of collective action in order to effectuate change.

2017 "Barack Obama" painting by Edwin van den Dikkenberg.