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♦ mh ORDINANCE WASN 'T DIRECTED AT BLACKS
03/09/93
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 1993, The Miami Herald
DATE: Tuesday, March 9, 1993 EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 13A LENGTH: 73 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: Lessie Ross ' s ID card (ID)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: HOWARD KLEINBERG Special Contributor
MEMO: VIEWPOINTS
ORDINANCE WASN'T DIRECTED AT BLACKS
LATE LAST spring, when I began research for a book I am writing on the
history of Miami Beach, one of the first documents that I sought was the
often-cited ordinance banning blacks from being in that city after nightfall
without a pass.
I discussed the issue with Dorothy Fields, founder of the Black Archives
Foundation of Southern Florida, with other historians, and with Miami Beach
city officials. Uppermost in my mind was finding one of those identification
cards that blacks were required to carry while in Miami Beach. I had no luck.
Working with the city clerk' s office, I searched transcripts of Miami
Beach City Commission meetings for wording of the alleged ordinance. I went as
far back as the handwritten record of the first meeting in 1915. Eventually,
and after many visits, I found what I was looking for. Covetously, I kept it
tucked away in my research papers to be revealed with publication of the book,
hopefully early this winter.
But current events have flushed it out earlier. In an article last month,
Herald reporter Olympia Duhart wrote about her aunt, Lessie Ross, who worked
as a domestic in Miami Beach for 40 years. Part of that article contained the
allegations about the pass for blacks, and her aunt was photographed showing
one (at last! )
Several days later, former Miami Beach Councilman Burnett Roth retorted
with a letter to The Herald' s Readers ' Forum claiming that the ordinance did
not discriminate against blacks but included anyone working in Miami Beach in
tourism-allied trades.
That ' s what I had known since late last spring. The ordinance didn't
single out blacks. It doesn' t mention blacks, Negroes, coloreds, or any such
racial description.
But that is not how things worked out. Conceived ostensibly for health
and crime prevention reasons, the ordinance included practically everyone
working in Miami Beach. But its enforcement was applied principally to blacks.
According to longtime Miami Beach residents and officials whom I talked with,
police challenged few whites for being on the streets after dark. But blacks
regularly were targeted.
This was the time-worn practice of selective enforcement, a
discrimination as evil as any ordinance that might actually have required only
blacks to have an ID card. For the record, however, let it not be said any
more that Miami Beach passed a law targeting blacks.
So let us put to rest in newspaper and magazine articles, in speeches and
over-the-fence conversation, that Miami Beach ever passed such a racially
inspired ordinance. But let us never forget how selective was the enforcement
of the ordinance that was passed.
TAG: 9301170585
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