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"Her Own Little Paris In Miami"

Marice Cohn Band
/
The Miami Herald

Ruth Greenfield was a music teacher and a maverick. In the segregated 1950s and 60s, she ran a Miami arts school that included students and teachers from all racial backgrounds–even if she had to teach in a Masonic lodge or in a funeral home.  She came from a privileged background and was able to study music in Paris, where people of all kinds interacted more freely.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU--wnfHuZI&feature=player_embedded

Her school, the Fine Arts Conservatory, expanded to six branches throughout Miami. For 25 years, students from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds came there to learn music, dance, drama and visual arts. The teachers were different races too. Before she was elected to Congress, Carrie Meek volunteered as a dance teacher there on Saturdays.Greenfield and her family hosted dinners and put on recitals.

For a while, Ruth Greenfield had created her own little Paris.

Khrista Rypl and Sammy Mack contributed to this story.

Alicia Zuckerman is Editorial Director at WLRN, where she edits narrative and investigative audio journalism. In 2020, she was named Editor of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists Florida chapter.
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