Liberty City was never just a neighborhood. It was a declaration.
Platted in 1922 during the Florida Land Boom, the 80-acre community emerged when Black workers were building the city but had nowhere to live. Stretching between Northwest 62nd and 71st streets, it centered around Northwest 18th Avenue — then called Broadway.
The land was already Black-owned. In 1908, four farming families—the Sampsons, Strothers, Perrys, and Richardsons — pooled resources to buy acreage from a bankrupt sawmill operator. When white developer Floyd Davis later platted the land, he preserved their names in streets. Alonzo Kelly, a Black real estate agent, marketed the lots, and his daughter, Bloneva, chose the name ‘Liberty City.’
“I think the name itself has a lot of symbolism that maybe we don't take the time to reflect on what that means, what it might have meant to live in Liberty City,” said Megan McLaughlin AICP, director of Preservation Projects at Plusurbia, which led the Liberty City Historic Survey commissioned by Dade Heritage Trust.
Small lots, big stakes
In the 1930s and 1940s, Liberty City was a vital escape from the overcrowding of Overtown. While marketed as affordable, these small lots carried hidden costs. Redlining saw the FHA label the area "Hazardous" due to its "negro concentration," denying residents the low-interest loans that built white suburban wealth. Families adapted through private lenders, credit unions, and risky balloon payments.
“It was a foothold,” said McLaughlin. “Because those low-interest FHA loans were not available, this might have been what those families could afford.”
Jacqui Colyer remembers her parents moving from Liberty Square public housing to buy a home in Liberty City in the 1950s.
But without access to conventional FHA-backed mortgages, Colyer said they entered what she now recognizes as a predatory seven-year balloon note requiring the entire balance at the end of the term.
“If you didn't have the money to pay off the loan, then you would lose your home,” she said. “Or you stay, but you would be renting from the financier.”
Her mother’s discipline of buying monthly money orders at the post office saved them. She still has the receipts. In the end, her parents paid off the loan, securing their home and stability. Colyer said her father’s job as a union longshoreman made the difference, providing “more than a living wage” and allowing them to make homeownership work.
The neighborhood’s success prompted the federal government to establish the South’s first public housing project for Black residents, Liberty Square, in 1936. The survey identifies 1936 to 1968 as Liberty City’s “golden years.” Homeownership fueled church growth and political power. Families stayed. Children thrived, including prominent figures like Congresswoman Frederica Wilson.
“We have never found the neighborhood with the kind of longevity and kind of intergenerational families, living for so many decades in one home. So that kind of stability is very unique,” McLaughlin said.
Millionaire’s Row
Across from Liberty Square, Miami’s Black elite built grand homes along Northwest 67th Street, known as “Millionaire’s Row.”
“When my sister and I would get out of music class, we would skip our little happy butts down 67th Street because the houses were so beautiful,” Colyer said. “And so we would say, ‘That’s my house. That’s my house.’”
In 2019, Colyer and her sister bought one: a 1947 Mediterranean-style home once owned by Ellis “Peaches” Lindsey and his wife, Anne. Ellis owned real estate and a cigar store and accumulated much of his wealth through bolita, the underground lottery that operated in Black and Cuban communities before the state lottery existed. He was shot outside the house in 1948. His widow, Anne, remained a social titan.
“All of the entertainers who came to Miami visited this house,” Colyer said. “Josephine Baker was a good friend of hers. Nat King Cole did a concert right here in the living room.”
She has photos of a young Dr. Enid Pinkney receiving a donation for Booker T. Washington High from Joe Louis at the house.
Millionaire’s Row also featured the Bannister home, Sarah Thompson’s residence, and nearby streets with homes for Livingston Adderly, the Stirrup family, and the Elder Thomas Richardson Building, along with more churches.
Despite its history, the house was slated for demolition when Colyer bought it.
“It has just been such a challenge working with the city to try and get this house restored,” she said. “As opposed to, ‘Hey, let us hold your hand and walk you through this because this house should be restored. It has to be preserved.’”
Her vision is to restore its 1947 pink façade and turn nearby utility poles into art installations telling the street’s story.
“When you know what your past was, it gives you a roadmap to your future. When you look at Liberty City, and you see what was here back in the 1950s, when we had nothing, very little money. But we made a community that works, and that is beautiful,” Colyer said.
15th Avenue Corridor
For Terrence “Uncle Tee” Smith, owner of Barbara & Kirk’s Barbecue, the story of Liberty City isn’t just the housing — it's the corridors that held people together. He remembers 15th Avenue as a block-by-block economy of family storefronts.
“Family owned, wife and husband and children run the business,” he said. “We used those stores as our Winn-Dixie. We didn’t have to go to them, them, them, them big grocery stores.”
According to the survey, the historic 15th Avenue commercial corridor was designed to provide goods and services to serve an influx of Black residents in the northwest section of Miami.
Today, vacancy rates are high, partly due to the redevelopment of Liberty Square.
Smith, who grew up in Liberty Square, used a settlement from his brother’s death as a U.S. Marine in the Beirut barracks bombing to buy a home nearby and later open his restaurant seven years ago, named after his mother and brother. A mural of his family adorns the walls.
“I always want the barbecue and run a restaurant,” Smith said, recalling how his mentor, Mr. Wonderful — stepfather of Miami rapper Trina — taught him how to barbecue.
Smith described the corridor as a landmark and the reason why he chose to buy the property.
“I’m the only landmark now. I’m the only one in the project that came back to the community as a Black-owned restaurant,” Uncle Tee said. “So that’s like a pat on the back for me.”
His restaurant is a community hub where students gather, and commissioners place catering orders.
However, he explained that the corridor needs more activation.
“Get a lot more Black-owned businesses in this area, along this strip.”
Leadership and Future
Steve Carroll, son of the first Black Miami-Dade Commissioner Earl J. Carroll, remembers his father as relentless.
Born in 1931, Earl tried to join the military at 14 by lying about his age. He was turned away. Undeterred, he later worked on the railroad, lived in Chicago for nearly a decade, and eventually enlisted, becoming a Korean War veteran.
“He was always different. He liked to do his own thing. He knew how to hustle to make dollars, and he always had this thing about helping his mother,” Steve said.
After his service, Earl worked in Chicago before returning to Miami to enroll at Florida A&M University, where he earned a degree in political science. He opened an insurance business in Liberty City and entered politics. He lost his first race for state representative but pressed on. In the late 1960s, he pushed for district voting before the county commission, then ran and won the District 3 seat.
Whenever federal housing or civil rights protections were passed, he fought to codify them locally.
“If the feds do it, then let me get it on the books here,” Carroll explained. “That’s how he thought.”
Fair housing. Local enforcement. Municipal adoption of federal protections. Steve said his dad understood political layering and how to use it.
Steve grew up in Liberty City and remembers having a front-row seat to power. At 10, his father took him to a political meeting at Toby’s Cafeteria.
“All the leaders were there. Mayors, attorney general, senators,” he said, recalling how Claude Pepper sat across from him at the table.
To Steve, Liberty City, from the '60s through the '90s, felt cohesive, supported by youth employment programs and beautification efforts.
He worries the neighborhood is now used as a "meal ticket" for federal dollars that benefit outside developers while leaving the area blighted.
“Liberty City could be just that — a city of liberty,” he said. “Where it doesn’t matter what color you are… you’re going to have a decent living, chance to make money, live, and be healthy and be safe.”
Preservation as power
McLaughlin argues that preservation is a strategy, not just nostalgia. She believes Liberty City is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, which could unlock tax credits and grants for areas like 15th Avenue.
“I don’t think it’s a question of tearing down what’s there and building something ‘better,’” she said. “The bones of what are there are important.”
This story was produced by The Miami Times, one of the oldest Black-owned newspapers in the country, as part of a content sharing partnership with the WLRN newsroom. Read more at miamitimesonline.com.
