My immediate family consisted of my mother, father, three brothers and two sisters. My father, Bishop Henry Curtis, came to Miami in 1910 from Port Howe, Cat Island, Bahamas. My father had been a farmer in the Bahamas. Since he had no land to farm in Miami, he used his knowledge of farming to become a gardener. He was fortunate to work for wealthy white people in Miami Beach. The pay was good. He was also a minister. My mother, Lenora Clark Curtis, was from Exuma, Bahamas. She was a maid.
My father’s employers only stayed in Miami during the winter. They required my father to live on their premises while they lived up north during the summer. I was born in Overtown in the house my parents owned at 1827 N.W. Fifth Court; my brother was born on Miami Beach at 4609 Pine Tree Dr., where my parents worked and lived in the servants’ quarters. The Bureau of Vital Statistics, however, refused to put Miami Beach on his birth certificate because he was black. Likewise, my brother and I were not allowed to live with our parents in Miami Beach. This meant that my grandmother, Melvina Clark, and her daughter, my aunt Beulah Clark, had to move to our home in Overtown so we could have adult supervision and attend Dunbar Elementary School.
My parents were proud of their Bahamian heritage and brought us up in Bahamian traditions and culture. They were not interested in becoming American citizens until they found out that they could get a tax exemption as citizens. They took citizenship classes and passed the test to become American citizens.
My father studied the United States Constitution and was quick to share his knowledge. One night when we were driving home from church on State Road 9, the police stopped us for driving with bright lights. One of the policemen ordered my father out of the car and to take off his hat. My father asked the policeman what law he was violating by keeping his hat on. Incensed by the question, the officer slapped my father, knocking his hat off! My father stooped down, picked up his hat, put it back on his head, and told the policeman, “I’m the last black man you’re ever going to slap.”
Shocked by my father’s response, the officer turned to my poor mother and persuaded her to calm my father down, but she couldn’t. The policeman said he would have to arrest my father because of his lack of respect for an officer, and they took him away, leaving us on State Road 9 not knowing how we were going to get home. My father told the officers that he knew he had the right to make one telephone call and he wanted to call his boss. Rather than going through the trouble, they brought him back to where they left us, and my father drove us home.
Our lives centered on church, school, neighborhood and family. We attended the Church of God of Prophecy on a regular basis and participated in all activities in the church including Sunday school and youth group activities. At Booker T. Washington High School, I participated in plays and organizations. My brother, Isreal, played football and sang in the school chorus. I served as president of the student council during my senior year, which gave me the opportunity to meet and greet celebrities such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and boxer Joe Louis. I was even asked to participate in a Brotherhood Week radio broadcast with white students from other communities.
Afterward, I was mentioned in an article that came out in the Miami Herald about a cross burning in front of the house of one of the white students in Coral Gables who had invited me to speak.
My family and friends feared for my safety and said I should stop following Ms. Marie Roberts, my civics teacher, who frequently attended integrated meetings despite segregation and Jim Crow. My father refused to be intimidated and did not stop me from going with Ms. Roberts. His courage and fortitude for justice continues to live within me and motivates much of what I do today.
My parents had strong values and expectations for their children, but the sustaining elements in our home were always love and pride. We were told that we were special because we were a Curtis, and our name became a source of pride and belonging for my brother and me. Our name represented the best within us and we had to live up to it. This meant that we had to finish high school and further our education.
After high school, my brother went to the Air Force. He received an honorable discharge and began working for the Miami Herald, where he was the first black pressman. I went on to study social science at Talladega College in Alabama, earning a bachelor of arts degree. I returned to Miami and became a teacher at Dorsey Junior High and a counselor at Edison Senior High School. I earned a Master of Science degree in guidance and counseling from Barry University and became assistant principal at South Miami Junior High School, where I retired in 1991.
I served as a board member and the first African-American president of both Dade Heritage Trust and Natives of Dade and Pioneers of Miami. As a dedicated historic preservationist, I uncovered research showing that African Americans were buried at the City of Miami Cemetery, and I led efforts to preserve the Miami Circle, the Historic Hampton House Motel, the Lemon City Cemetery, and a unit of Liberty Square, one of the nation’s oldest public housing complexes. I have been awarded honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degrees from St. Thomas University and Talladega College.
Above all, I credit my achievements to my parents and the example they set with their strong values, commitment to family, and involvement in church and community activities. I am married to Frank Pinkney.
There is an unmarked, unprotected historical African-American cemetery in the Redlands that needs preservation and historical interpretive signage –
Silver Green Cemetary for African -Americans
On a five acre piece of prairie in South Miami in the Redlands is a historic African-American cemetery. The Silver Green Cemetery, also sometimes called Carver or Princeton Colored Cemetery, was created in 1905 by Gaston Drake who owned the Drake Lumber Co. in Miami. He named the community Princeton after where he went to college. Drake provided the land to be used as a cemetery during segregation for his Black workers. It became the permanent burial site for all blacks from Homestead to Perrine. Drake was a major provider of wood in the area until he moved the business to Palm Beach in 1923. After that the cemetery was taken over by the Masons who charged $25 for a burial plot and $5 to dig the grave. Families would take up collections at church to pay for burials. Few families could afford a granite headstone so most graves were marked with a simple wooden cross.
The coral rock ground made it very difficult to dig the graves and would often take two days to create a hole big enough. Johnnie “Catman” Everett became the cemetery grave digger from 1919 to 1955 after he discovered you could use dynamite to blast a hole and created his sister in law’s grave in only 6 hours. Everett could not read or write so record keeping fell on his young daughter Lydia Walker who didn’t know how to record the graves. She was able to compile a list of 60 names of people who may have been buried here which is the most complete list to date.
In 1955 the Masons sold the cemetery and that was the last year of burials. New owner Phillip Coleman stopped maintaining the cemetery causing the families of people buried here to complain to state officials. In 2004 there was a push to save the cemetery. Miami-Dade commissioners passed a resolution urging the state to support the preservation, restoration, and recognition of historically black cemeteries. Instead of being restored the cemetery was sold to its current owner David Vega. He keeps the grass mowed and watered. The only grave that is still recognizable is the cracked headstone of WWI veteran John Thomas Byrd. Some of the family names buried here include Cherry, Richardson, Perry, and Gaither. The other grave markers have disintegrated over time. It would take ground penetrating radar to determine where the bodies are.
This is another example of an African-American cemetery left to ruin. It is not an uncommon story in South Florida. People can’t find their family members and no one seems to care. Even worse, a plan was approved in 2002 to build a 3.2 mile road that will extend SW 137th Avenue from South Dixie Highway to SW 200th street. If the road is built it would go past the cemetery. Since there is no boundaries, the road construction could possibly unearth bodies.
For now Mr. Byrds marker stands like a sentinel over the graves of his neighbors. A field next to the cemetery is filled with beautiful sunflowers. It feels peaceful here but for how much longer is a guess. Miami should step in and build a proper memorial to protect the final resting place of the African-American pioneers who built and farmed Miami. https://www.yelp.com/biz/silver-green-cemetery-princeton