Latest news with #BlackSoutherners
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Making the City Beautiful: How Bahamians built the iconic Venetian Pool — and Coral Gables
On a hot afternoon last August, the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables seemed almost idyllic. Little kids swam under the waterfall and into a cave. Their parents sunbathed under lush palm trees. With two towers and a bridge, the 60,000-square-foot Venetian Pool built from coral rock is best known for its iconic Mediterranean Revival aesthetic, akin to that of Venice, Italy. The Venetian Pool is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a distinction city officials have long sought to maintain, and it annually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. Long before it became one of South Florida's most popular tourist attractions, it was an eyesore. Originally a quarry in the early 1920s, it was the source of much of the coral rock used to build homes and structures in the city. What was left after removing the rock was a large pit that wasn't very attractive to potential home buyers and developers. The solution: transform the pit into a pool. The people who quarried the coral rock to build many buildings in Coral Gables and the Venetian Pool more than a century ago were expert stonemasons from the Bahamas. Bahamians' contributions to Coral Gables, particularly their quality craftsmanship in building the city, are being highlighted this year during the city's centennial celebration. While the Venetian Pool represents the grandeur of their artistry, the two small neighborhoods where they lived showcase the durability of their work: the Golden Gate and MacFarlane Homestead subdivisions — built by both Bahamians and Black Southerners during racial segregation — feature original century-old homes in the Bahamian bungalow and shotgun wood-frame styles. All of them have survived despite hurricanes and the test of time. The Venetian Pool first opened in 1924, a year before the city was incorporated, under the name 'Venetian Casino.' It debuted with Jan Garber's orchestra playing poolside. Another draw: Orator William Jennings Bryan spoke at the pool. He was a former secretary of state who ran for president three times and served in Congress. It quickly became a popular attraction. 'The Venetian Pool was more than just the community pool, it was also a way to attract ... developers and people to purchase their homes,' said Coral Gables City Manager Carolina Vester, who started her career with the city over 20 years ago as a lifeguard at the pool and later worked as its manager. '[Coral Gables founder] George Merrick set forth big attraction events where people were coming in to purchase property, and he had to entertain them,' she said. The Venetian Pool hosted beauty contests, dance performances and aquatic shows. Jackie Ott 'The Aqua Tot' was one of many celebrities who performed. He started at the age of 4, dressing up, swimming, aquaplaning and diving through fire hoops. The pool would often also become a makeshift amphitheater where opera singers and orchestras would perform at the bottom of the drained pool. On the city's 90th anniversary, the Miami Symphony Orchestra recreated one of those music performances, assembling on the pool floor. ' Not much has actually changed of how it looked a hundred years ago to what it looks like today,' Vester said. 'And that's the beauty of preservation.' During a $2 million renovation in 1987, a 10-foot tall diving board was removed. Also, pumps were installed to recirculate water. 'We actually drain and fill the pool every single night from Memorial Day to Labor Day,' Vester said. 'That's about 820,000 gallons of water, and we don't waste it. ... We have two injection wells across the street, and they inject the water at high velocity back down into the aquifer about a hundred feet underground.' The water naturally percolates through the limestone bedrock, which acts as a filter, before it reaches the Biscayne Aquifer, Vester said. 'So we're constantly recirculating the water, both manually and naturally,' she said. 'That's very, very unique to the pool. This pool is one of a kind.' In preparation for the city's centennial anniversary celebrations, the pool has been undergoing renovations since October. It is scheduled to reopen this summer. Many locals know little about the Bahamian people who quarried the rock to build Coral Gables. At the turn of the 20th century, a large portion of Miami's Black population was from the Bahamas. Many farmers from there would travel seasonally to South Florida to work the region's agricultural crops. 'As laborers, they built churches and residences, hotels and businesses for Coral Gables, 'The City Beautiful,'' said Dorothy Jenkins Fields, a Bahamian descendant and founder of the Black Archives Foundation. 'I'm always so proud to be able to say that, because we were a big part of making it beautiful — not only with the construction, but also with the gardens and the landscaping.' Entrepreneurs advertised their construction projects in Bahamian newspapers to attract workers. The site where Coral Gables Senior High School is today was once a tent city for construction workers. By the 1920s, Bahamians became essential to the local economy. READ MORE: 'Long overdue': Historic marker celebrates Black community that helped establish Coral Gables 'These early pioneers knew how to use lumber to construct buildings, but they had no idea of how to deal with coral rock, which is the foundation of South Florida,' while Bahamians had experience using coral rock back home, said Marvin Dunn, a retired and renowned local historian and author of Black Miami in the Twentieth Century. Many houses as well as structures around the city — like the Alhambra and Douglas entrances — were built with coral rock. During this time of racial segregation and institutionalized racism, Bahamian workers faced many challenges here, including exploitation, unsafe working conditions and even displacement. 'There were no protections against accidents or injuries. Some people, in the course of building Coconut Grove and Coral Gables, died in accidents. No compensation. The amount of pay was barely above the level to sustain a family,' Dunn told WLRN. Bahamians and Black Southerners who had been living near the University of Miami were pushed out to make way for student dormitories. As part of a deal with Merrick and the university, community members moved across U.S. 1 to an area now known as the Golden Gate and MacFarlane Homestead subdivisions. ' In the mornings they would work for George Merrick. ... And in the afternoons they would come, and they would build their homes,' said Carl Leon Prime, president of the Lola B. Walker Homeowners Association and third-generation Macfarlane Homestead resident. In his neighborhood, there are 36 original bungalow and shotgun-style houses with apparent Bahamian influences that have survived for more than a century. Many are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 'It shows real craftsmanship and attention to detail that you can't get anywhere else,' Prime said. Today, many residents of those communities are descendants of the neighborhoods' pioneering families. Leigh Cooper-Willis, 34, grew up in Golden Gate, like generations in her family before her. '[My family] came to work for George Merrick, and then they lived in this house,' said Cooper-Willis, a fourth-generation descendant. 'And then my grandfather was born on that property. Then my mother, and now I live there with my family, [with] my son.' Prime also lives in the house that his grandfather built in 1936 at another location and moved to the current spot two years later. ' We can tell the family history in the avocado trees in the yard,' Prime said. When his grandfather moved the house, a tree was already planted there. Near it is the tree that his father planted and, between them, is the avocado tree that Prime planted himself as a child. Earlier this year, the city of Coral Gables celebrated the predominantly Black neighborhood bordering Coconut Grove for its historic contributions in marking its centennial. In an opinion letter published by the Miami Herald, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago mentioned the commission will further honor this legacy by commissioning a public sculpture to be installed at Merrick Park across from City Hall.
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Miami Herald
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Making the City Beautiful: How Bahamians built the iconic Venetian Pool — and Coral Gables
On a hot afternoon last August, the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables seemed almost idyllic. Little kids swam under the waterfall and into a cave. Their parents sunbathed under lush palm trees. With two towers and a bridge, the 60,000-square-foot Venetian Pool built from coral rock is best known for its iconic Mediterranean Revival aesthetic, akin to that of Venice, Italy. The Venetian Pool is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a distinction city officials have long sought to maintain, and it annually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. Long before it became one of South Florida's most popular tourist attractions, it was an eyesore. Originally a quarry in the early 1920s, it was the source of much of the coral rock used to build homes and structures in the city. What was left after removing the rock was a large pit that wasn't very attractive to potential home buyers and developers. The solution: transform the pit into a pool. The people who quarried the coral rock to build many buildings in Coral Gables and the Venetian Pool more than a century ago were expert stonemasons from the Bahamas. Bahamians' contributions to Coral Gables, particularly their quality craftsmanship in building the city, are being highlighted this year during the city's centennial celebration. While the Venetian Pool represents the grandeur of their artistry, the two small neighborhoods where they lived showcase the durability of their work: the Golden Gate and MacFarlane Homestead subdivisions — built by both Bahamians and Black Southerners during racial segregation — feature original century-old homes in the Bahamian bungalow and shotgun wood-frame styles. All of them have survived despite hurricanes and the test of time. The Venetian Pool comes alive with entertainment acts The Venetian Pool first opened in 1924, a year before the city was incorporated, under the name 'Venetian Casino.' It debuted with Jan Garber's orchestra playing poolside. Another draw: Orator William Jennings Bryan spoke at the pool. He was a former secretary of state who ran for president three times and served in Congress. It quickly became a popular attraction. 'The Venetian Pool was more than just the community pool, it was also a way to attract ... developers and people to purchase their homes,' said Coral Gables City Manager Carolina Vester, who started her career with the city over 20 years ago as a lifeguard at the pool and later worked as its manager. '[Coral Gables founder] George Merrick set forth big attraction events where people were coming in to purchase property, and he had to entertain them,' she said. The Venetian Pool hosted beauty contests, dance performances and aquatic shows. Jackie Ott 'The Aqua Tot' was one of many celebrities who performed. He started at the age of 4, dressing up, swimming, aquaplaning and diving through fire hoops. The pool would often also become a makeshift amphitheater where opera singers and orchestras would perform at the bottom of the drained pool. On the city's 90th anniversary, the Miami Symphony Orchestra recreated one of those music performances, assembling on the pool floor. ' Not much has actually changed of how it looked a hundred years ago to what it looks like today,' Vester said. 'And that's the beauty of preservation.' During a $2 million renovation in 1987, a 10-foot tall diving board was removed. Also, pumps were installed to recirculate water. 'We actually drain and fill the pool every single night from Memorial Day to Labor Day,' Vester said. 'That's about 820,000 gallons of water, and we don't waste it. ... We have two injection wells across the street, and they inject the water at high velocity back down into the aquifer about a hundred feet underground.' The water naturally percolates through the limestone bedrock, which acts as a filter, before it reaches the Biscayne Aquifer, Vester said. 'So we're constantly recirculating the water, both manually and naturally,' she said. 'That's very, very unique to the pool. This pool is one of a kind.' In preparation for the city's centennial anniversary celebrations, the pool has been undergoing renovations since October. It is scheduled to reopen this summer. Bahamian workers built The City Beautiful Many locals know little about the Bahamian people who quarried the rock to build Coral Gables. At the turn of the 20th century, a large portion of Miami's Black population was from the Bahamas. Many farmers from there would travel seasonally to South Florida to work the region's agricultural crops. 'As laborers, they built churches and residences, hotels and businesses for Coral Gables, 'The City Beautiful,'' said Dorothy Jenkins Fields, a Bahamian descendant and founder of the Black Archives Foundation. 'I'm always so proud to be able to say that, because we were a big part of making it beautiful — not only with the construction, but also with the gardens and the landscaping.' Entrepreneurs advertised their construction projects in Bahamian newspapers to attract workers. The site where Coral Gables Senior High School is today was once a tent city for construction workers. By the 1920s, Bahamians became essential to the local economy. READ MORE: 'Long overdue': Historic marker celebrates Black community that helped establish Coral Gables 'These early pioneers knew how to use lumber to construct buildings, but they had no idea of how to deal with coral rock, which is the foundation of South Florida,' while Bahamians had experience using coral rock back home, said Marvin Dunn, a retired and renowned local historian and author of Black Miami in the Twentieth Century. Many houses as well as structures around the city — like the Alhambra and Douglas entrances — were built with coral rock. During this time of racial segregation and institutionalized racism, Bahamian workers faced many challenges here, including exploitation, unsafe working conditions and even displacement. 'There were no protections against accidents or injuries. Some people, in the course of building Coconut Grove and Coral Gables, died in accidents. No compensation. The amount of pay was barely above the level to sustain a family,' Dunn told WLRN. Bahamians and Black Southerners who had been living near the University of Miami were pushed out to make way for student dormitories. As part of a deal with Merrick and the university, community members moved across U.S. 1 to an area now known as the Golden Gate and MacFarlane Homestead subdivisions. ' In the mornings they would work for George Merrick. ... And in the afternoons they would come, and they would build their homes,' said Carl Leon Prime, president of the Lola B. Walker Homeowners Association and third-generation Macfarlane Homestead resident. In his neighborhood, there are 36 original bungalow and shotgun-style houses with apparent Bahamian influences that have survived for more than a century. Many are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 'It shows real craftsmanship and attention to detail that you can't get anywhere else,' Prime said. Today, many residents of those communities are descendants of the neighborhoods' pioneering families. Leigh Cooper-Willis, 34, grew up in Golden Gate, like generations in her family before her. '[My family] came to work for George Merrick, and then they lived in this house,' said Cooper-Willis, a fourth-generation descendant. 'And then my grandfather was born on that property. Then my mother, and now I live there with my family, [with] my son.' Prime also lives in the house that his grandfather built in 1936 at another location and moved to the current spot two years later. ' We can tell the family history in the avocado trees in the yard,' Prime said. When his grandfather moved the house, a tree was already planted there. Near it is the tree that his father planted and, between them, is the avocado tree that Prime planted himself as a child. Earlier this year, the city of Coral Gables celebrated the predominantly Black neighborhood bordering Coconut Grove for its historic contributions in marking its centennial. In an opinion letter published by the Miami Herald, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago mentioned the commission will further honor this legacy by commissioning a public sculpture to be installed at Merrick Park across from City Hall.
Chicago Tribune
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: New book on Anne Frank considers both the person and the cultural pawn she's become
Sometimes, early in the experience of reading a book, I will get a sensation that I may be in the presence of a classic. It's tough to say what triggers this sensation. I remember experiencing it while reading Isabel Wilkerson's 'The Warmth of Other Suns,' her landmark exploration of the emigration of Black Southerners to other parts of the country in the 20th century and how this remade our culture. You just get the sense that you're experiencing a rare intersection of subject and unique authorial intelligence. I had this feeling when I first started on Ruth Franklin's 'The Many Lives of Anne Frank,' and by the time I finished reading, this feeling was confirmed. This is a book that should be read and discussed for generations. It's worth wondering whether or not we needed another study of Anne Frank. There are multiple biographies of Anne Frank. The Anne Frank house in Amsterdam is one of the most visited tourist destinations in all of Europe. We also have Anne's own words from 'The Diary of a Young Girl,' compiled by her father Otto Frank after the war, which has been read by millions across dozens of languages. Franklin dives into all of this by considering Anne Frank through a series of different lenses — child, refugee, prisoner, writer, icon — in order to simultaneously bring the reader closer to Anne Frank, the real person who lived a real life, and the image of Anne Frank that has suffused society in the years since her death. At her heart, Franklin is a literary biographer — having previously published a marvelous biography of the writer Shirley Jackson ('Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life') — and her skill as an interpreter of text shines throughout the book. In the first section of the book, Franklin repeatedly brings historical analysis, primary sources and Anne Frank's writing into juxtaposition with each other in a way that both illuminates Anne Frank as an individual and the larger tragedy of the Holocaust. A recent controversy over an AI-powered Anne Frank chatbot that could not be made to condemn the Nazis who murdered her is a reminder of the danger of reducing real people into slogans. The opening chapters of Franklin's book serve as a clear corrective to the reduction of Anne Frank into a billboard icon, a smiling girl with 'Believe in people' stamped above her image. Franklin deeply admires Frank's precocity and talent and spirit, and shows us how and why we should consider her a genuine literary figure, but she also reminds us she was a girl who died of disease alongside her sister, Margot, at the Bergen-Belsen death camp. The book would be a welcome addition to the Anne Frank canon if it ended after these opening chapters, but Franklin goes on to consider the posthumous legacy of Anne Frank as a 'celebrity,' 'ambassador' and 'survivor,' the last category through the inspiration she's given other writers such as Philip Roth ('The Ghost Writer') and Shalom Auslander ('Hope: A Tragedy'), who have used Anne Frank as a jumping off point for their own creative work. A final chapter of Anne Frank as a 'pawn' in present-day geopolitical events will challenge and unsettle many readers, but this is Franklin's mission, to consider Frank in all dimensions. Produced as part of Yale University Press's Jewish Lives series, 'The Many Lives of Anne Frank' is very readable without sacrificing complexity or depth. It's a book that would satisfy anyone who has read 'The Diary of a Young Girl' or toured the annex where Anne's family and others were hidden. Read this book. You won't regret it. John Warner is the author of 'Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.' Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance' by Kellie Carter Jackson 2. 'All of Us Strangers' by Taichi Yamada 3. 'Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage That Shook Europe' by John Guy and Julia Fox 4. 'The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders' by Sarah Aziza 5. 'Maskerade: Discworld #18' by Terry Pratchett — Lesley W., Evanston I think this book is out of print, which is a shame, but libraries will have it and it can be bought used, 'You Came Back,' by Christopher Coake. 1. 'Roctogenarians' by Mo Rocca and Jonathan Greenberg 2. 'Pay Dirt' by Sara Paretsky 3. 'Horse' by Geraldine Brooks 4. 'Like a Garden' by Sara Covin Juengst 5. 'Every Day is a Good Day' by Wilma Mankiller — Beverly B., Valparaiso, Indiana 'The Round House' by Louise Erdrich is the pick for Beverly. 1. 'Hope Dies Last' by Studs Terkel 2. 'The Barn' by Wright Thompson 3. 'James' by Percival Everett 4. 'Begin Again' by Eddie Glaude Jr. 5. 'No Name in the Street' by James Baldwin — John H., Ft. Wayne, Indiana What a great list. I'm going with one of my favorite back-in-print cult classics of African American literature, 'Oreo' by Fran Ross.
Buzz Feed
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Someone Tried To Fact-Check Anthony Mackie About His Family Upbringing, And It Didn't End Well In The Comments
As Anthony Mackie reflected on his journey to becoming Captain America, some people questioned the details in his story. On Feb. 6, Anthony attended the Captain America: Brave New World Atlanta tour stop at Morehouse College to discuss the highly-anticipated release of his new film. He's set to reprise his role as Sam Wilson in the latest installment. After officially stepping in as Captain America, he's called into action when an international incident strikes. While speaking with moderator and host Fly Guy DC, the MCU star shared a revelation about his father that showed just how proud Anthony was of his career trajectory thus far. This event was in collaboration with the AUC (Atlanta University Center — a consortium of four HBCUs — Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of. Medicine, and Spelman College). "My father was told he had to drop out of school in eighth grade to pick cotton with my grandfather," Anthony said in a viral clip. "And I'm Captain America." "So, when you look at it that way, it hits different," he added He recalled going to Morehouse College on multiple occasions to visit his older brother Calvin. He became so close with his brother's friends that they eventually became like mentors to Anthony. Fans were drawn to his story, but some people couldn't get over the statement about his father picking cotton. So much so, that they even tried to call him out and "catch him in a lie" as they pulled up screenshots of his Wikipedia page: Many questioned the validity of his father picking cotton, despite it being the 1960s, according to their math. But what they might not realize is people were still picking cotton during that time, up until the mid-to-late '60s, to be exact. Although mechanical cotton pickers began to take over in the 1940s and 1950s, there were still parts of the US that benefited from hand-picked cotton. The image below is from 1960, and it captured a man picking cotton on a plantation in Georgia. Not all sharecroppers had access to the machines, which is another reason labor workers and slaves were used to pick the fields. Three Lions / Getty Images "Pitched as a solution for both groups, sharecropping was presented to the formerly enslaved as land ownership by proxy," according to a 2023 PBS article. "It put an end to work in 'gangs' under an overseer while keeping Black workers within the agricultural sector, preferably on the same land where they had been held captive, and incentivizing high crop yields, benefitting landowners. Sharecropping, with its prohibitive restrictions on physical and economic mobility, its use of violence and intimidation and its emphasis on maximum production, denied Black Southerners the ability to gain wealth, to exercise the freedom granted them by Emancipation and to gain the education they were deprived of during enslavement. Sharecropping had become obsolete in many [but not all] areas of the South by the mid-twentieth century. With increased mechanization, white planters' demand for Black labor dried up." Cotton-picking is oftentimes solely associated with slavery, but the need for cotton didn't begin or end with slavery. During a 2021 episode of The Black Prospector Show podcast, the host spoke with his uncle who picked cotton up until the early 1960s. @yugoohnishi / While others just viewed it as him sharing his humble beginnings. Many chimed in to support Anthony and help debunk all the naysayers: @asapteejo / @thekodakchris / Whew, this was a lot to take in! What do you think about Anthony's statement and the reactions? Let me know in the comments! Anthony Mackie reflects on his family's past when playing Captain America: 'My father was told he had to drop out of school in eight grade to pick cotton with my grandfather, and I'm Captain America. When you look at it that way, it hits different' (Source: theauccentralllc/IG) — DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 7, 2025
