People

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]