The MegaPlan for Miami: What's it to Overtown?

This photo, courtesy of The Overtown Collaborative, is of historic Overtown in 1900.

Check out Part 1 of The Miami Herald's new series "The Megaplan for Miami," where they focus on the role new developments introduced by Miami Mayor Manny Diaz to "revitalize" the city affects historic Overtown HERE. It still amazes me how some people underestimate the value of this town, its people, its culture and Overtown's tremendous history (check out the comments to this story to see what I mean). The contributions of historic Overtown and its people are part of what made Miami what it is today, if we want to be REAL.

In its hay-day (you know, when Black folks weren't allowed into Downtown unless we were cleaning up), entertainers, intellectuals, authors, civil rights leaders and working-class folks from around the country to enjoy the culture and comfort Overtown had to offer. Its easy to write off a community that, on the surface, seems like just another "ghetto" hood riddled with drugs, gun violence, and decrepit housing. No one wants to HONESTLY look at how it got that way though. Critics sound off about Overtown, but seem to gloss over the MANY hard-working people, that powerhouse of a school across the highway and the profound unity of a neighborhood so abandoned and misused by ills of the past that took place in this city. If there is to be a plan proposed to make a serious and beneficial turn-around in Overtown, honest needs to be first on the table. The problems didn't come about overnight, and painting the town with an expensive and dismissive brush won't help either. Let's hope this new plan is an attempt to do what's right by a community so wronged before.

Check out some history of this great community at the Overtown Collaborative's main site HERE