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

Anniversary | National Negro Business League
2028-08-23 | City of Miami (Historic Negro) Black Police Museum, 480 NW 11th Stree, Miami, FL, 33136, United States
Booker T. Washington creates the National Negro Business League

The Negro Business League was founded by Booker T. Washington on August 23, 1900 to promote the interests of Black businesses all over the country.

The League, created initially in Boston, Massachusetts, included small business owners, doctors, farmers, craftsmen, and other professionals.
Booker T. Washington felt that there was a need for African Americans to build an economic network and allow that to be a catalyst for change and social improvement. The League also helped these businesses with merchandising and advertising problems, promoting them in Black newspapers and magazines.

Image: Letter from the Negro Business League to the City of Miami Chief of Police and the Director of Public Safety. In this letter, they petition for Civil Service status for the Black policemen of Miami. Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum archives.

Patriot Day
2028-09-11 | City of Miami (Historic Negro) Black Police Museum, 480 NW 11th Stree, Miami, FL, 33136, United States
Patriot Day

On September 11, 2001, our nation experienced a heartbreaking tragedy. On this day, four coordinated terrorist attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group.

Nineteen terrorists from al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed because of the damage sustained from the impacts and the resulting fires. After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, D.C.
The attacks killed 2,977 people from 93 nations: 2,753 people were killed in New York; 184 people were killed at the Pentagon; and 40 people were killed on Flight 93. The attacks of September 11 will never be forgotten. The victims, as well as the heroes who responded when called upon, remain in our hearts and minds forever.

The image shown here is of members of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Florida Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team, who were present at Ground Zero. In 2011, they were presented with a piece of a steel beam from the World Trade Center collapse. This, along with images of MDFR employees working at the World Trade Center after the attacks are on display in the front lobby of MDFR Headquarters at 9300 NW 41 Street.
Image courtesy of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
2029-01-16 | 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
2029-02-04 | 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
