Hate spoke with defacing of Jackie Robinson mural. But love will prevail

Miami Herald

a day ago

I woke up this morning and it hit me: The year is nearly half gone. And there are things that I still need to get done before the end of 2025.
Topping that list is to have more compassion and love for my fellow human beings. That's not a very tall order. But one needs a willing spirit to cast aside the hate and ugliness that keeps coming at you.
For some of us, it is easy to love those who love you. We can count on their smiles, their warm and encouraging words to help light up our world.
But the reality is this: Not everyone will love you, or even like you, or people who look like you. Some people will hate you simply because you are kind. Being hateful themselves, they can't understand how you're kind no matter what they hurl your way. Some people will hate you simply for no reason at all.
Others will hate you because you've learned how to step over the obstacles they've placed before you to stop you. They hate you because you have learned how to take the sour lemons they hurled your way and make the sweetest lemonade ever.
One of the most common reasons to hate another person is because he/she looks different. This is racial hate. And if it continues to go unchecked, this kind of hate — this racial hate — will continue to tear our communities, our country apart.
I thought about the many ways haters conjure up ways to celebrate their hate when I learned about the recent defacing of the Dorsey Park murals in Overtown.
The murals honor Black history and feature several Black heroes, including Jackie Robinson, whose mural was among those defaced with the N-word and a Nazi swastika. In 1947, Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first Black ballplayer in Major League Baseball. He has long been one of my heroes.
A Minnie Miñoso mural was also vandalized. Miñoso, a Black Cuban baseball player, played in the Negro Leagues before playing with the Chicago White Sox. His portrait had a swastika spray-painted on it.
READ MORE: Jackie Robinson mural defaced at Overtown park where Negro Leagues once played
Unlike many other landmarks in Overtown, Dorsey Park — or the Dust Bowl, as we Blacks called it back in the day (the 1940s and 1950s) — is still in the same location at Northwest First Avenue and 17th Street. Back then, Dorsey Park was the only stadium in town for Blacks.
It was dubbed the 'Dust Bowl' because unlike the gleaming Orange Bowl Stadium that was well-kept by the city of Miami and had a nice grassy surface for games to be played on, the Dust Bowl was just that — a stadium full of dust.
Even so, the Dust Bowl was a beloved site in Miami's segregated Overtown community. During the football season, it was the home of Booker T. Washington Jr./Sr. High School football games.
During home games, the BTW Marching Band and Majorettes would lead the parade to the Dust Bowl. I can still hear the sound of marching feet hitting the asphalt streets as the band, led by band master Timothy O. Savage, made its way on game day from the school, then at Northwest 13th Street and Sixth Avenue, over to Northwest Second Avenue and on to Dorsey Park.
The Dust Bowl was more than where local Black high school football teams played. It was also the place that the Negro Leagues' Ethiopian Clowns called home. And where carnivals were held.
It was our park, made possible in 1917, when D. A. Dorsey, a Miami Black millionaire businessman and philanthropist, sold the parcel of land to the City of Miami to be used as a park for Blacks. Dorsey, Miami's first Black millionaire, died in 1940.
It wasn't until 1954 that rivals BTW and then-Dorsey High in Liberty City were allowed to have their annual Turkey Day Classic game (held Thanksgiving morning) in the Orange Bowl. All other games were still in the Dust Bowl.
Last week, memories of the good times we had in the Dust Bowl flooded my mind when I learned that some haters had vandalized the murals, which were a collaboration among the Moving Lives of Kids (MLK Mural Project), URGENT, Inc. and Touching Miami with Love.
The MLK Mural Project was founded by artist Kyle Holbrook, who told the Herald in a statement: 'This was an act of hate, but it will not define us. This mural was born from a community's pride, history, and power. We will restore it—stronger, bolder, and with even more purpose. Black history is American history. And no spray paint can erase that truth.'
Yes, hate raised its ugly head in the vandalization of the Dorsey Park murals.
But love is alive and well. Local artists are already working to undo the damage. And Holbrook said he is already thinking of ways to rework the mural, making it even bigger and better.
That's how love works. It shames the devil. When hate pokes up its ugly head, love overshadows it with goodness and gracefulness and purpose.
Each of us can use the next six months working on our own heart, praying for a heart that is filled with compassion and love. And kindness.
I believe it can be done.