A can of spray paint and a hateful act can't erase Miami's shared Black history
Already, local leaders are calling for unity and strength and planning to make the mural in Miami's historic Overtown neighborhood more visually powerful. That's important: Standing up to hatred is the fitting and necessary response, and we hope to see more leaders with influence in South Florida join in publicly. We will be much stronger if we fight with a united front.
'This mural was born from a community's pride, history, and power,' said Kyle Holbrook, the founder of the MLK Mural Project, as reported by NBC 6. 'We will restore it — stronger, bolder and with even more purpose. Black history is American history.'
The artwork features local and national figures of Black excellence such as baseball great Jackie Robinson, whose image was among those defaced. Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color line in 1947, becoming a symbol of the civil rights movement in the process.
Painted on the fences surrounding Dorsey Park in 2012, the public art project — led by the MLK Mural Project, Urgent Inc. and Touching Miami with Love — was also created to honor the cultural legacy of the park, which was once home to the Negro Leagues' Ethiopian Clowns. The park was named after D.A. Dorsey, considered to be the first African-American millionaire in Miami.
The vandalism apparently occurred Sunday or Monday. By Tuesday, the slurs were covered by tarps, which seems like a good idea. Why give the perpetrators any more air time for their foul work?
Daniella Pierre, president of the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP, told NBC 6 she is asking for more police presence in the neighborhood and, potentially, for cameras to be posted.
'We will not tolerate hatred, bigotry or any defacing to any of the murals in our community. We're here today to call for change. We're here today to call for unity. But we're also here today to call for greater protection,' she said at a news conference about the vandalism, which was on a section of the mural at NW 17th St. and NW 1st Ave.
South Florida knows far too well about hatred. Since two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, D.C. were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21, police in our community have been on high alert. And that was before the attack in Colorado where a suspect threw Molotov cocktails at people rallying for Israeli hostages. South Florida has one of the largest Jewish communities in the nation.
As the Miami Herald Editorial Board pointed out after the shooting in D.C., we have almost become accustomed to hate crimes in this country, an awful thing to contemplate. This is not something we should get used to, even though the language of hate — name-calling and anger and vilifying the 'other' — runs rampant through our politics.
The defacement of the Overtown mural isn't just vandalism. It's an attack on who we are and who we want to be. The perpetrators must be caught, but our efforts can't stop there. This is a symptom of a problem we have in this community Miami needs to fight hate with everything we have.
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