People

Prince - Rock Star Murry Sill

Prince’s Purple Rain concert at the Orange Bowl, 1985

Fans Crown Prince King Of OB Rock By LAURA MISCH Herald Staff Writer April 8, 1985 Dig if you will the picture — of Prince and Miami engaged in a kiss. A long, slow, wet kiss, Prince’s favorite kind, fueled by the purple passions of 55,000 rock fans gone crazy. In the Orange Bowl Sunday […]

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Gloria Estefan David Bergman

Gloria Estefan: Queen of Latin Pop

Born in Havana in 1957, Gloria Fajardo was two when her family fled Cuba for Miami. Gloria suffered through a childhood marked by the Cuban diaspora. Her father joined the U.S. Army, fought at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, later developing multiple sclerosis after exposure to Agent Orange. By the time Gloria was […]

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Janet Reno John Pineda

Janet Reno: First Woman Attorney General

Janet Reno was born in Miami but destined for the national stage. The child of two journalists, she distinguished herself early, graduating from Harvard Law School in 1963, one of 16 women among more than 500 men. She became the state attorney for what was then called Dade County in 1978 at age 39, running […]

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0560954022 Dave Didio

Eufaula Frazier: Community Activist

Eufaula Frazier was born into a family of 11 children in Eastman, Ga., where their farm was among the few black-owned homesteads.  She was accepted to Howard University but couldn’t afford to go. She went to Washington anyway, attending cosmetology school. Frazier moved to Miami in 1950, raised four children and opened a beauty shop, […]

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Elizabeth Virrick

Elizabeth Virrick: Housing Reform in Miami

Elizabeth Landsberg Virrick was Miami’s champion slum fighter. Born in Winchester, Ky., Elizabeth Virrick was educated at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University, studying interior design and architecture. She treasured Blue Vanda orchids and designed her own house as a showplace for her collection of antiques. Such was the unexpected background and interests of […]

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0560953873 Bob East

Angela Davis in Miami: 1973 and 1976

In 1973, Angela Davis, who had recently been acquitted of murder charges stemming from a Marin County Courthouse shootout in 1970, came to speak at the Jewish Cultural Center in Miami Beach and the New Covenant Presbyterian Church. She came to speak about racism and political repression and more importantly to organize a local chapter […]

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Hippies - Florida Dave Didio

Hippies in the sun

In the late 60’s long-haired, beaded, and tie-dyed flower children brought their drugs, incense, guitars and peace symbols to the South Florida surf. The Hippie movement had finally reached Miami. Coconut Grove, known for its laid-back attitude,  became the gathering place for the counterculture. On any given day one could find Hippies smoking pot in Bayfront Park, […]

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Bill Sanders

Betty Wright

In 1968, a local disc jockey introduced Betty Wright as “super-Miami’s own homegrown superstar”. Wright, who grew up in Liberty City, began her solo career at 11 when Clarence Reid and Willie Clarke heard her singing in Johnny’s Record Rack, the base for their Deep City label. A few years later she recorded Girls Can’t Do […]

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

In Miami, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached and organized during the 1960s, residents remember his legacy every year on the third Monday in January with memorial services and celebrations of his life. Parks, streets and schools are named for the activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work combating racial […]

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Winston Churchill visits Miami

After Winston Churchill led a battle-scarred Great Britain through the ravages of World War II, he sought sun and tranquility — and found them in Miami. On doctor’s orders to escape England’s winter, he vacationed here on New Year’s Day 1946, about eight months after the war in Europe ended. While here, he painted scenes […]

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