Dr. James F. Sistrunk: Among Fort Lauderdale's first Black doctors

Steamboat Everglades on the New River circa 1922

Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

James Franklin Sistrunk (1891-1966), a Fort Lauderdale pioneer and doctor is credited with delivering  5,000 babies. But his practice extended far beyond obstetrics. 

As the only Black physician in the city from about 1922 until the late 1930s and with strictly segregated medical care, Blacks came to him or were brought to him from as far away as Pompano or Boca Raton. He tended to a range of typical illnesses, as well as injuries sustained in car and industrial accidents and fights. He conducted house visits and often, to assist the poor, did not collect fees.

Dr. Sistrunk was born Midway, Florida, about 10 miles from Tallahassee. In 1919 he earned his medical degree at Meharry College in Nashville, TN.  In 1922, he came to a growing Fort Lauderdale. He filled a large medical void and served his community in many ways.

The doctor delivered services with scarce supplies and equipment. A hospital was needed. Sistrunk, in partnership with Dr. Von Mizell and Leona Collins, opened Provident Hospital in 1938, the “only hospital in Broward County exclusively” serving the Black community. Dedicated Sunday, May 1^st that year, the hospital (some called it a sanitorium) offered 12 beds and 24-hour nursing care at 14^th Avenue and 6^th Street. Supplies and equipment were provided through donations raised at teas, casino nights and an assortment of benefits regularly written up in the Fort Lauderdale News months before and years after Provident Hospital opened its doors.

The hospital filled a community service and often drew newspaper interest.  In 1938, Dr. Sistrunk and five other Black doctors completed a three-week intensive training in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. A month later, Black doctors from other parts of the state volunteered their services so Provident could provide free tonsil removal for Black children for one week.

Dr. Sistrunk was also busy in the community. During World War II, he, Dr. Mizell, Dr. J.L. Bass and Dr. E.G. Thomas ran a campaign to raise funds for a “soldier club” for service men returning home to Fort Lauderdale on furlough. Additionally, Dr. Sistrunk was active in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Veteran’s Association and Sigma Fraternity.

In 1956 he and wife Daisy, parents of two daughters, held an open house at their new home at 724 N.W. 27 Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. It was the only house with a pool in the neighborhood located near the New River and was reported to have been built for about $65,000. 

Provident Hospital was torn down in 1964 after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when hospitals were integrated. Medicare could not serve segregated facilities.

Dr. Sistrunk died March 20, 1966, at 75. For his contributions to the community, the city rededicated the 6^th Street Bridge as the J. F. Sistrunk Bridge in 1968 and renamed parts of 6^th Street, Sistrunk Boulevard in 1971. 

The Sistrunk Festival with its parade is held each February to honor the doctor. The corridor was once core of the city’s African American community and today is a revived cultural area of Fort Lauderdale.

Copyright © 2021, 2022. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

For other pioneer Fort Lauderdale doctors, search for Mizell or Kennedy.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 16, 1928

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 16, 1935

Fort Lauderdale News, May 3, 1938

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 23, 1938

Fort Lauderdale News, July 21, 1938

Fort Lauderdale News Oct. 28, 1942

Fort Lauderdale News Aug. 7, 1950

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 21, 1956

Fort Lauderdale News, March 21, 1966

Roots Web

Tags: African American history in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale pioneer doctors, Provident Hospital, Fort Lauderdale history

First African American radio station in Miami is ...

WFEC studio Christened at
the Lord Calvert Hotel,
Overtown, Miami  circa 1950
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Miami radio station WFEC (Florida East Coast Broadcasting Company) launched operations April 10, 1949. Located at that time at 350 NE 71 Street, it promoted itself as the “Whole Family Entertainment Center.”  The station, 1220 on the radio dial, featured news from the communities of Allapattah, Miami Shores, Miami Springs, Little River, 54^th Street, Edison Center, North Miami and Opa-locka. Part of its early schedule included news from the Jewish community.

A day-time operation only, it shifted to “all-Negro programming” by July 1952. By the end of that year the WFEC touted itself as “the only station in Florida featuring all-Negro programming.” One of its disc jockeys, Carlton King Coleman (1932-2010), became a popular Miami radio personality by the late 1950s when the station evolved into WMBM. Coleman later provided some of the vocals for the hit song (Do the) Mashed Potatoes recorded with James Brown’s Band. His career included his own radio shows in New York City and acting in a few films including Bad Boys II.

The station served as an early starting point in the illustrious career of Noble V. Blackwell (1934-1994), known as "HoneyBee" to listeners. He moved on to work as director of broadcasting at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia for more than two decades and as broadcaster for NBN New York City. In 1972 Noble was honored as "Man of the Year" by the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers. He also hosted the popular TV show, Night Train in 1964. His dream of owning a radio station was realized when he bought twin staions WCDL AM and FM in Pennsylvania. He successfully transitioned them into WLSP Hit Kickin' Country. (A recently-launched documentary about Noble Blackwell can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/@noblevblackwell).

Another WMBM personality, Larry King (1933-2021) launched his interview show there in the late 1950s, early 1960s. He later moved to Miami’s WIOD* and syndicated the show nationwide before landing at CNN.

Through a series of license sales, owners, radio dial numbers, frequencies, and locations, WMBM now offers urban gospel programming serving Miami at 1490 on the dial.

Looking back, it could be said WFEC paved the way for ethnic programming with its rhythm and blues and gospel format for Miami’s African American community. The station helped place the city at the vanguard of radio broadcasting before a nationwide increase in station consolidation and decrease in local radio identity became the norm.

Copyright © 2022, 2023, 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

For more on WIOD, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/07/miamis-radio-610-wiod-wonderful-isle-of.html

Sources:

Miami Herald, April 10, 1949

Miami Herald, Feb. 10, 1950

Miami News, Aug. 8, 1951

Miami Herald, July 21, 1952

Miami Herald, Jan. 15, 1953

Miami Times, Nov. 30, 1957

The Tennessean, Sept. 13, 1994

Wikipedia

NB Production Team/Tracye Blackwell Johnson

Tags: Miami radio history, African American history, Miami in the 1940s, Miami in the 1950s, Miami history, Noble V Blackwell,  Carlton King Coleman, Larry King

Fort Lauderdale's Woodlawn Cemetery restored to dignity for African Americans, migrant workers and indigent

 

By Jane Feehan

Since the early 1900s Woodlawn Cemetery was the final resting place for Fort Lauderdale’s African- Americans, migrant workers and indigent.  As segregation receded into the chronicles of history and caretakers died, the cemetery fell into disrepair. For years it served as a place to dump trash, sell drugs and conduct other illicit activities.

The cemetery is located at NW 9^th Street off Sunrise Boulevard, adjacent to Interstate 95. Many of Woodlawn's headstones have disappeared over the decades. Infants interred in graves without markers added to identification issues. The section dedicated to them was eventually taken over by I-95 construction.

The 1990s heralded change. First, Woodlawn was brought into Fort Lauderdale’s network of city cemeteries in 1996. Then  the Woodlawn Cemetery Revitalization Committee was established and raised $250,000 in donations. Funds were used to build walkways and install landscaping, fencing and signage. The cemetery was rededicated and restored to dignity October, 2002. Work continues ...

The number and identities of those buried at Woodlawn may never be known. It’s the resting place for many of Fort Lauderdale’s pioneers, including some who came from the Bahamas to help build Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. It’s also the final home to lynching victim Rubin Stacy* (d. July 19, 1935). 

Sources:

Sun-Sentinel. “A cemetery’s revival,” Jane Feehan, Oct. 20, 2002.

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, African-American history, cemetery history,history of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Black history, history of Fort Lauderdale

"Swim-in" protests spark desegregation of Fort Lauderdale beaches 1961

Fort Lauderdale Beach demonstration 1961
 State of Florida Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

It wasn’t easy for all to enjoy Fort Lauderdale beaches before the 1960s. 

One beach north of today’s Oakland Park Boulevard was designated for African Americans, but was closed when Galt Ocean Mile underwent development. The only other beach they were permitted to visit was south of Port Everglades, now John U. Lloyd State Park. The recreation area was accessible only by ferry and lacked facilities. 

Broward County failed to build a road to this beach, galvanizing the African American community to desegregate Fort Lauderdale beach.

To paraphrase the news service on a summer day in 1961, Blacks swam at a crowded Fort Lauderdale beach while police watched. Officers on motorcycles and a paddy wagon were staged nearby.

Two girls and five boys were led to the beach by Dr. Von D. Mizell, Broward County secretary of the NAACP. But Mizell said the swim-in (also referred to as wade-in) was not sponsored by the group. It was the first of 200 swim-ins that summer that physician Mizell and president of the local NAACP, Eula Johnson, supported.

Fort Lauderdale filed suit in the Broward County Circuit Court against Mizell, Johnson, and the NAACP in 1961 to stop the wade-ins. Nearly a year later, Judge Ted Cabot denied the city’s request, essentially desegregating the beaches. Swim-ins proved to be a success, if not an immediate one.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler commemorated the swim-ins during the city’s centennial in 2011, dedicating a plaque installed in the sand at Las Olas and A1A. Mizell and Johnson are lauded today as leaders in the city's civil rights movement. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

*Freedom Rides to the South began May 14, 1961, a watershed year in the national civil rights movement.

Sources:

Miami News, July 5, 1961

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

City of Fort Lauderdale: 

https://www.fortlauderdale.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/61222/637616958091070000


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale African American history, Fort Lauderdale desegregation, Fort Lauderdale civil rights movement, film industry research

Fort Lauderdale's day of infamy: the 1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy

By Jane Feehan

I first wrote about this day of evil as a student at Virginia Commonwealth University during the 1970s. I had read about it in a book from their library and then presented the story in class. It was thought then to be one of the last such lynchings in the United States.  

After years of near silence, news stories about this dark chapter in our history abound. Some may say Fort Lauderdale’s day of infamy was July 19, 1935. 

On that day, African American Rubin Stacy (published also as Reuben Stacy, or Rubin Stacey) 37, was seized by a mob from the custody of six Broward County deputies as they were transporting him to a jail in Dade County for “safekeeping." He had been accused by a 30-year-old white woman of a knife attack in her Fort Lauderdale home, 

The mob, estimated by deputies to be about 100 men with faces covered and license plates hidden, took Stacey, kneeling in prayer, to an area near the house of accuser Marion Jones. There, they hanged and then shot him 16 times.  

Jones claimed Stacey knocked on her door asking for a glass of water and then followed her inside where he pulled a knife to her throat. Her screams, she said, frightened Stacey off. She later recanted the story. Some say Stacey was a homeless tenant farmer going from house to house asking for food.

It was widely believed that deputies, then led by the notorious Sheriff Walter Clark, were in collusion with the mob. They were, the story goes, angered by the slow legal proceedings of another case involving an African American.

Pictures of the lynching were shown to President Franklin Roosevelt in hopes of swaying him to support a federal anti-lynching law.  It didn’t have the impact hoped for; Roosevelt did not endorse the law because he feared losing Southern votes.

Rubin Stacey is buried in Fort Lauderdale’s Woodlawn Cemetery. He was born in Georgia.

Copyright ©2010, 2020, 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

                      

Sources:                                                                    

Palm Beach Post, July 19, 1935

Miami News, July 21, 1935

Palm Beach Post, June 13, 1937

www.findagrave.com

Tags: Fort Lauderdale lynching, Fort Lauderdale history, 

Rubin Stacy, Reuben Stacey, Fort Lauderdale black history, history of Fort Lauderdale, Jane Feehan

Broward County's Female Firsts

By Jane Feehan

Broward County can boast about a few female firsts. Below are several of these "first women" who made significant contributions to our local history. Lifespan dates are included when found. Also, some milestone dates vary in different sources but do not impact the significance of their contributions.

Eva Oliver or Mrs. Frank Oliver (1883-1964) – Eva Bryan and Frank Oliver were married in 1902, making theirs, according to some news accounts, the first wedding in the settlement of Fort Lauderdale. They stood in a rowboat while Capt. William Valentine read vows from the bank of the New River. A number of firsts can be attributed to her: first woman to drive a car in Fort Lauderdale; among the first to be baptized in the New River. A suffragette, Eva was active in town civic activities. She was the first president of the Woman’s Civic Improvement Society, the predecessor to the Woman’s Club of Fort Lauderdale.

Eula Gandy Johnson (1906-2001) - The first woman president of the Fort Lauderdale NAACP (1959-1967), this Georgia native moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1935. She owned a grocery store and two gas stations on Sistrunk Boulevard. Johnson was known for her fight to defeat Jim Crow laws, including those that kept Fort Lauderdale beaches segregated. Johnson, along with Dr. Von D. Mizell supported the first of 200 swim-ins the summer of 1961 that led to equal access by Blacks to the city's beaches.

Margaret Linardy (1903-1986) – First female mayor in Florida. She was elected mayor of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in 1947 when the town was incorporated for the second time (the first time was in 1933). She served one term.

Easter Lily (or Lilly) Gates  (1889-1985) - The first female school bus driver in Broward County. Her husband died shortly after the 1926 hurricane; Gates took up bus driving to support her family. A hat maker by trade (and later known for appearing in many of her over-the-top-millinery creations), Gates was elected Broward County Supervisor of Voting Registration in 1928 (some say 1929), making her the first woman elected to office in Broward County. She was tapped the first female president of the State Supervisors of Elections in 1938. While serving Broward County, Ms. Gates registered the first Black and Seminole Indian voters. She held office for 40 years.

Katherine Rawls (1917-1982) – First woman to win four national swimming championships at a single meet (1932); winner of 33 national diving and swimming titles. Katy  brought home bronze and silver medals from the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. In 1937, the Associated Press named Rawls the “Number One Athlete of the Year” among female competitors. Rawls was the first person, the first woman, to be inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965. (See index for more on Rawls)

Bette Mae Tiger Jumper (1923-2011) also known as "Potackee," was the first and only woman  elected to chair of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (1967). A woman of several firsts, Jumper was the first Seminole to earn a high school diploma. She was also the Tribe's first Health Director. She was one of two women appointed by President Richard Nixon to the National Congress of Indian Opportunity.

Lillian M. Smith – the first woman tax collector in Florida, this Fort Lauderdale resident was tapped as Broward County Tax Collector in 1925. She replaced Mr. W.O. Berryhill who resigned because of his health. It was also said he wanted to work in the real estate business, a booming sector that year.

Alice Guy Blaché (1873- 1968) – Though not from Fort Lauderdale, this French-born filmmaker was one of the first women to write, direct and produce a film. She brought a crew from her New Jersey studio to Fort Lauderdale in 1917 to make Spring of the Year. Blaché chose the city for its tropical, swampy environment. She is also considered by some to be the first in the industry to develop narrative films. For more, use search box.

Louise Virginia Kirk – A Hollywood resident, she was the first woman inmate of the newly constructed jail cells for women in Hallandale. She was arrested Feb. 6, 1960 for an alleged traffic violation that escalated to disorderly conduct. Ms. Kirk looked at the bright side of her incarceration, however, and claimed she’d as soon stay in jail than face house cleaning the next day. No doubt she  prefigured the women’s movement of the following decade ...  😊

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 16, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 13, 1928

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 8, 1937

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 30, 1950

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 6, 1960

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1978

https://flwomenshalloffame.org/

SoFla Times

Roots web genealogy

Broward.org

Tags: Female firsts of Broward County, Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history, women's history, African American History, Seminole history

Broward County's Black-White teacher exchange and desegregation

By Jane Feehan

Though public schools in the U.S. were ordered to desegregate in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education), they remained segregated for decades in schools across the nation and in Broward County, Florida.

When Broward County announced its Black-White teacher exchange program was a success in March 1966, it made news.

The pilot exchange program was conducted for a week, with no major problems, reported William Drainer, Broward County elementary education supervisor. 

White teachers were sent to teach Black students, Black teachers taught in White schools. Sixteen elementary schools participated in the program.  Teachers, parents, and students favorably evaluated the exchange afterward, leading to plans for a second exchange weeks later at 16 different schools.

“A good teacher is a good teacher no matter where he teaches,” said Drainer. A teacher is a teacher.

Apparently the program did little to abate resistance to desegregation by parents and some county politicians. In August of 1966, Broward County did not (at first) sign federal guidelines for desegregation, jeopardizing $4.5 million in federal funds. A confrontation among different stakeholders brought the county back to the drawing board.

By 1970 there were four public school systems in the South that refused to bus students to desegregate: Dade and Broward counties in Florida and two counties in North Carolina. 

Miami-based attorney Ellis Rubin, on behalf of United Stand for America, Inc., filed a petition against busing in the court. The group, which was also headed by Rubin, contended that a recently adopted state law prohibited expenditures of state or county funds for desegregation purposes. 

Based on that reasoning, a judge granted a temporary injunction to prevent busing. Eventually, Broward County received a $1.7 million federal grant to help pay for the school buses but lost that temporarily for noncompliance to federal requirements.

William Drainer, acting superintendent of Broward Schools in 1970, fully endorsed the transfer of 500 teachers and 3,000 students. Though his pilot program four years prior underscored a teacher was a teacher, it did not take into account politicians. 

The busing controversy was not resolved until the early 1970s. Today, many desegregated schools in Broward and Miami-Dade are once again minority schools.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, March 17, 1966

Palm Beach Post, Jul 16, 1966

Palm Beach Post, Jul 23, 1966

St. Petersburg Times, Jul 24, 1966

Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Dec. 22, 1969

Palm Beach Post, Aug. 26, 1970

 Tags: African American history, Broward County history,  Broward County in the 1960s, Broward County in the 1970s,

Trailblazer Dr. Mizell served African Americans of Fort Lauderdale, Belle Glade

By Jane Feehan

Dr. Von Delaney Mizell (1910-1973), familiar to many in Fort Lauderdale for providing medical care to his African American community and establishing the Fort Lauderdale NAACP chapter in 1938, also served as a voice for minorities in Belle Glade, near Lake Okeechobee.

Son of Dania pioneers, Mizell lived in Belle Glade (span unknown to this writer) where his wife, Ida, operated a nursing home. Dr. Mizell served as the home’s physician but also commuted to Fort Lauderdale to practice medicine.

In 1971, reporter Janice Gould of the Palm Beach Post, wrote of a funding controversy swirling about two hospitals - Everglades Memorial and Glades General – in Belle Glade. She interviewed Mizell about the hospitals. He claimed care for the poor there was inferior and substandard to that “received almost anywhere in the U.S.”                                                                                     

Mizell had applied to practice at Glades General once a year from 1962 until he was accepted as staff in 1970 – but not allowed to perform surgery, his specialty. Gould wrote that Mizell's background included studies at the University of Pennsylvania with a residency at Howard University. Other records indicate he also attended Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Decades before - 1938 - in Fort Lauderdale, Mizell, with Dr. James Franklin Sistrunk, founded Provident Hospital. The facility served the Black community until desegregation of Broward General Hospital and other facilities in 1964. Even so, neither doctor is mentioned in the first written history of Fort Lauderdale, Checkered Sunshine (1966). Mizell, according to news accounts (if not the city's first history book) never stopped speaking for those who needed the most help in Fort Lauderdale, or Belle Glade.

_____

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 28, 1971

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flgsbc/resources/biographies_q-s.html

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004.

Great Floridians 2000




Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale African-American history, history of blacks in Fort Lauderdale