Rest in peace, Grandma

Last week, I blogged about the loss of another participant in my research on South Florida's racial and spatial politics - my grandmother. The late Lillie Mae Earvin of Belzoni, Mississippi. She died about 2 pm on March 3. She is pictured on the far right. My mom is in the middle. My great grandmother is on the left. It is my mom's wedding day. The year is 1966. "Following the crops to South Florida" in the 1950s, my grandmother was a huge inspiration in my life. My recorded interview with her is one of many primary sources helping me to find meaning in how people of African descent move to, through and away from South Florida since the late nineteenth century. Her passing is as good a time as any to now move all future entries for this blog to what is now my main blogging website. As I wrote in an earlier blog entry on that site, it's time to simplify. Blogging on one website is the way to do that, I've discovered.

in memory

I just presented my second paper on Miami's racial and spatial politics, this time at the Association for the Worldwide Study of the African Disaspora (ASWAD) in Charleston, SC. There, I toured Ft. Sumter and enjoyed being near my beloved Atlantic Ocean. I was drawn, too, to the trees in the area, among them palms. This talk served as a reminder of why this past summer's tribute to the participants in the ethnographic part of my study was important. Many of them are aging. My great uncle Alton Andrews, who is pictured here, could not attend. He died in September. He is the second interviewee who is no longer with us (Betty Ann Gooden, my great aunt, passed away in April 2014). I hope to do them all proud as the research continues.

Tribute to participants in research on "Black" Miami

I love the ocean and my childhood experiences beside it.

I finally had a moment to upload a slideshow of images from the July 18, 2015 tribute to participants in my study on "black" migration to and through South Florida. Thanks to my mentor Opal Comfort, my brother Duane Andrews, and my cousin Carolyn Roberts, for sharing their images.

These photos and this blog serve as a way to document my journey toward having a more complete understanding on how  people of African descent across time move through space in South Florida. Historians Arnold Hirsch and Raymond Mohl have provided cues that more work needs to be done on the anomalies of African American urban dwellers in the American "South." How much does South Florida adhere to and divert from established patterns in the Midwest and North? I am slowly learning. The next step is secondary source reading (the pile of books and papers is getting taller) and Census work. I have already signed up for online courses addressing how to better understand Census data.

 I see the Freedom Tower in Miami with new eyes.

It is my hope that allowing the participants in my research - which has an ethnographic component, something new for me as I tend to investigate the experiences of people who lived in the years surrounding the Civil War -  see how they help historians learn has been a good move. As I told many of them, this project will be ongoing and like the last one may take several years. As the eldest participant is 97-years-old, I don't know how many of them will be here to witness the outcome.

Why not share some of my early findings with them now? And so I am. Onward.

PS Hearty thanks to Craig Remington, Cartographer at the University of Alabama for his brilliant work in creating a map that is helping me. Remington is a former resident of Miami-Dade County. In fact, he recalls when missiles sat in a field in then-North Dade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He and his childhood friends used to play in that field. American High, my former high school, now sits on that land. Small world. We both have roots in then-Carol City, now Miami Gardens.

And thanks to Lauren Klinefelter and all of the staff at the Hollywood Beach Marriott. We did it!

First paper presented at SEWSA conference

The first paper concerning my research on race and space in Miami was presented two weeks ago at the Southeastern Women's Studies Association (SEWSA) conference in Boca Raton, Florida. In this paper, which is my second academic research project, I homed in on the racial and spatial politics as they relate to the initial rise of the University of Miami's football program.

I presented with fellow panelists, Veronica Suarez of the University of South Florida and Courtney Lankford of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Assistant Professor of English Regis Mann of Florida Atlantic University served as moderator.


This project has special meaning because I am a native of Miami, FL, and I attended UM in the mid-to-late 1980s. Cherished friends and family members as well as two study participants attended this talk.

I look forward to ongoing research and the publication of Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Black and White Intimacies in Antebellum America (Northern Illinois University Press), my first academic research project.

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