City of Miami (Historic Negro) Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum

Everyday People Exhibit
2025-12-03 10:00 - 2026-03-02 17:00 (America/New_York) | City of Miami (Historic Negro) Black Police Museum, 480 NW 11th Stree, Miami, FL, 33136, United States
The Everyday People Exhibit Is Coming to Miami! And we’re excited to host Part I & II right here in Overtown Soul Basel

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AN AFTERNOON WITH GARY TYLER
2025-12-07 13:30 | City of Miami (Historic Negro) Black Police Museum, 480 NW 11th Stree, Miami, FL, 33136, United States
Join Books & Books at the Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum for a discussion of Gary Tyler’s memoir Stitching Freedom.
In 1975, after being wrongfully charged with the killing of a white teenager and found guilty by an all-white jury, Gary Tyler was sent to Angola prison to die. He was only seventeen years old at the time, making him the youngest prisoner on death row in the United States. After more than four decades in prison, Gary Tyler was released in 2016. Despite massive evidence of his innocence, he was never exonerated. His case has become a symbol of the systemic racial inequalities in the U.S. criminal legal system.
Gary Tyler will be in conversation with museum director Terrence Cribbs-Lorrant, to talk about how he not only survived, but triumphed over this injustice. He will pay tribute to other incarcerated individuals who became his guardians and mentors and talk about discovering himself as an artist.
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About the Book:
In the tradition of books by Albert Woodfox and Angela Davis, this gripping memoir of a wrongful conviction and time spent on death row in Angola prison shows how incarcerated people care for each other and fight for justice
In 1975, seventeen-year-old Gary Tyler was sent to Angola prison to die. A year earlier, he had been wrongfully charged with the killing of a white teenager and found guilty by an all-white jury, making Gary the youngest prisoner on death row in the United States
Following his conviction, Amnesty International and investigative reporters documented the brutal treatment, fabricated evidence, recanted testimony, and repeated injustices that led to his sentencing. Three times Gary was recommended for a pardon; three times Louisiana governors refused to accept the political risk. After more than four decades in prison, Tyler was released in 2016—but he was never exonerated.
This is not a story of mistaken identity or circumstantial evidence, but one of systemic injustice from an institution hard-wired into a legacy of slavery—in effect, this was a legal lynching. While detailing the injustice, Gary’s memoir is also a remarkable story of pride, forgiveness, community, and triumph. With insight and heart, he shows how he learned to reject bitterness and fight for freedom, helped by activists such as Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace on the inside and relentless support from a mass movement on the outside. Stitching Freedom is the page-turning narrative with which Gary reclaims his power.
About the Author:
Gary Tyler is an artist and a spokesperson for justice. As a teenager, he was framed for shooting a white teen in Louisiana and sentenced to death by an all-white jury. He spent more than four decades at Angola Prison, where he galvanized a movement that grew to have national and international support. In prison, Gary became a freedom fighter, a mentor, head of the Drama Club, a hospice volunteer and a quilt artist. Upon his release, he got involved in the fight to end the death penalty. His work is in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in D.C and the Historic New Orleans Collection. Last year, Gary was awarded a Right of Return Fellowship and the 2024 Frieze LA Impact Prize, recognizing artists who use their talents to address social justice issues. He holds an honorary doctorate of fine arts from MassArt. Stitching Freedom is his first book.

About the Moderator:
Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant, known as the performing artist VesSouL, is a humanities/cultural curator with a special approach to performing arts. He serves as the Museum Director for the City of Miami Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum. Terrance is the creative conductor behind #BlackCollectorsGallery, inspiring Black people to collect and share Black art. Since 2005, Terrance has been pushing the motto You Make The Change. com, a motivational tool promoting personal accountability to see/experience the positive change you want to see. He is also increasing awareness of tokenized (black) art/ NFT within the black/brown community. His research and exhibit “The Red Line Letter: Our Eyes Are Open” was featured in the museum’s 2018 Soul Art Basel. Terrance’s written work, “The Rite to Riot,” is being reviewed for publication and was part of the National Organizations of Black Law Enforcement (N.O.B.L.E.) 2019 Conference.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
2026-01-20 | FL
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Did you know…Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made frequent trips to Miami throughout his life, and even delivered an early version of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Hampton House in 1960?

On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law, designating the third Monday in January a federal holiday in observance of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The legislation to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first introduced just four days after his assassination on April 4, 1968. Still, it would take 15 years of persistence by civil rights activists for the holiday to be approved by the federal government and an additional 17 years for it to be recognized in all 50 states. Today, it is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer and improve their communities.

In 1977, Miami became the first city in the United States to organize a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade. The parade, which has been taking place for over 40 years occurs along Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd in Liberty City.

Image: Float representing the city of Opa-Locka parades down Martin Luther King Boulevard on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 19, 1987. Joe Raedle, photographer. Courtesy of HistoryMiami Museum.

Rosa Park's Birthday
2026-02-04 | FL
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005)

Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The United States Congress has called her “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake’s order to relinquish her seat in the “colored section” to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation, but the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws. Parks’ prominence in the community and her willingness to become a controversial figure inspired the Black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year, the first major direct action campaign of the post-war civil rights movement. This year-long boycott resulted in the desegregation of buses in Montgomery, Alabama on December 20, 1956. Rosa Parks remained a civil rights activist until her passing. When she passed away in 2005, she became the first female American who was not an elected official to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
Image: Rosa Parks in a beauty salon in Miami, 1986. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
