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.

For other pioneer Fort Lauderdale doctors, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2014/02/trailblazer-dr-mizell-served-african.html

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2021/01/rough-start-for-fort-lauderdales-first.html

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.

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.

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. In 2010 I first posted this piece.

Amazing how after all these years, the city finally acknowledges the lynching. Times have indeed changed; published "news" stories about this dark day now abound.

Old (and not so old) histories of the city failed to mention Fort Lauderdale’s day of infamy, July 19, 1935. 

On that day, African American Rubin Stacy (published also as Reuben Stacey, 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

July 21, 1935

Tags: Fort Lauderdale lynching, Fort Lauderdale history, 

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

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

The Liston-Clay fight in Miami Beach, a star is born

Feb. 25, 1964 Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

It was announced in December 1963 that a matchup between boxing champ Sonny Liston and the brash Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) would be held at the Miami Beach Convention Hall in February, 1964. 

The attorney representing Liston was Martha Jefferson Louis, wife of famed boxer Joe Louis. Miami millionaire Bill MacDonald and boxing promoter Chris Dundee were instrumental in bringing the historic fight to Miami Beach.

MacDonald guaranteed the pugilists $625,000 for the “live gate,” revenue derived from the sale of seats that sold for $20-$250. With 16,000 seats in the hall, a sellout would garner $1.1 million. Liston would get 40 percent, Clay, 22 ½.  MacDonald needed $800,000 to break even. Closed circuit TV would generate even more money after Theater Network Television took its 15 percent. 

MacDonald’s expectations merged with differing expectations for the outcome of the fight.

Some thought the pairing a mismatch; Clay, at 22, was thought to be too young—not ready—to beat the powerful and ferocious Liston, nicknamed “Big Bear.” About 30 years old (he was not sure of his birth date), Liston had a 35-1 record with 24 knockouts.

“No one could ever convince me that anyone could beat Sonny Liston,” said Dick Cami, one-time boxing manager and owner of Miami Beach’s Peppermint Lounge. “He had it all—the weight, the jaw, the punch and the reach ... he had unusually long arms.”

The Associated Press reported Liston stood to earn $1.6 million in a fight that may not last three rounds. Liston had anticipated no more than three rounds. Others mused it would be a good fight because Clay, “the Louisville Lip,” had already won 19 fights, 15 by knockouts. He was fast on his feet and fast with the punches.   Clay, 1960 Olympic Games light heavyweight gold medalist, already known for his dramatic outbursts (and poetry), claimed he would win in eight, five or three rounds. In any case, he planned to “upset the whole world.”

Sparring for the Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1964 fight began immediately. The two snarled at each other when meeting up accidentally at Dundee’s Fifth Street Gym where Clay was training with Angelo Dundee. Messages were exchanged before the big event with Liston claiming Clay was “his million dollar baby.” Clay’s poetic yet taunting prediction began with: Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat; If Liston goes back an inch farther he’ll end up in a ringside seat.

Liston and Clay knew how to display both sides of their personalities. The Big Bear, a guest at the Casablanca Hotel on Miami Beach, played unofficial entertainment director, shaking hands and hamming it up by the pool lifting women into the air while husbands snapped pictures with their Brownie cameras. Ed Sullivan introduced Liston and Joe Louis sitting together in the audience at the Deauville Hotel for the Beatles' appearance on his show.*

Clay worked just as hard to let the world know who he was.

Ali in 1978,
Courtesy of the Maryland Stater

“To know Cassius, like the saying goes, was to love him,” Cami said.  Before the fight, Clay came into the Peppermint Lounge to visit (but never drink) with singer Dee Dee Sharp who had recently recorded the hit Mashed Potatoes. “He was in every sense of the word a gentleman and definitely not a womanizer,” recalled Cami.  One night the young fighter asked Cami if he could park his bus outside the lounge.

“He had a bus with a giant picture of him on each side and the 79th Street Causeway (where the Peppermint Lounge was located) was a perfect place for it to be seen," Cami said.

Clay’s public relations campaign continued. A few days after they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Beatles stopped by the Fifth Street Gym where he playfully lifted one or two of them off their feet for the press.

The days for playing hard and training harder quickly slipped away as the main event approached.

During weigh-in the morning of the big day, the two continued the taunting. Clay’s outbursts were so wild that he was later fined by the Miami Boxing Commission. They eventually got down to business. Clay, at 6’3” weighed 210 pounds while 6’ 1” Liston weighed in at 218 pounds. The reach of the Louisville Lip was two inches shorter than that of the Big Bear. The fight was on.

Liston, a 7-1 favorite, came out like a bear for the first three rounds, but suddenly lost advantage to the younger Clay. The Louisville Lip landed a punch that left a deep gash beneath Liston’s eye. It bled heavily and later needed eight stitches. When the bell rang for the seventh round, Liston remained in the corner; his shoulder was reportedly injured. Clay was declared heavyweight champ of the world.  “I am the greatest,” the 22-year-old yelled. He had indeed upset the world. He was the greatest.

The outcome did not prove as pleasant for Bill MacDonald. Only 6,297 seats were sold out of the 16,000 in the hall. A news story reporting Cassius Clay had joined ranks with the Black Muslims turned spectators away who took a dim view of the group. Others reported seeing Clay with Malcolm X.

Whatever the reasons, the live gate brought in only $402,000; Liston (who died in 1970) reportedly received $367,000. MacDonald was mentioned as a defendant the following year in a law suit resulting from the fight.

After the historic fight, Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali. According to Cami, Angelo Dundee told him efforts by the Black Muslims to fire him and hire one of their own were spurned by Ali. The young fighter was smart; he remained loyal to the trainer who helped him earn his title.

Ali fought his last match in 1981, ending a career of 61 fights with 56 wins and 37 knock outs. The fighter who took control over his own image from the beginning became as mellow and majestic as an aging lion. Once one of the most recognized faces on the globe, Muhammad Ali died June 3, 2016 at 74.  Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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* It was a banner year for Miami Beach: the Beatles, the Liston-Clay fight and then the Jackie Gleason Show announced its plans to broadcast from the city.

Miami News, Dec. 6, 1963

Miami News, Dec. 10, 1963

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 23, 1964

Palm Beach Daily News, Jan. 7, 1965

Kleinberg, Howard. Miami Beach: A History. Miami. Centennial Press (1994)

Tags: Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, Liston-Clay fight 1964, Miami Beach in the 1960s, Dick Cami, Peppermint Lounge, film researcher, boxing history, Miami Beach history