162 Black men among the 367 voters who incorporated Miami (Miami, July 28, 1896)

SUMMARY162 Black men among the 367 voters who incorporated Miami (Miami, July 28, 1896) [Connections: Miami & Lake Okeechobee, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDWLRN reports 367 people voted to make Miami a city, 162 of them Black (about 44%), and quotes historian Paul George that many were Bahamian Americans; the city needed 300 registered voters to incorporate. The Opa-locka "Rising Seas" exhibit gives the same 162 of 367. Paul S. George's peer-reviewed article gives 368 total voters, says several Black men spoke at the incorporation meeting, and that most Black voters were registered beforehand by the Flagler company, which wanted incorporation. Wikipedia's Overtown page gives "about 168 of the 362 men." The University of Miami Overtown chronology says 41 percent. After the vote, the city put Black residents north and west of the FEC tracks in "Colored Town." Hostile witness note: the registration was driven by Flagler's company for its own vote count

PATTERNBlack men were counted as citizens when their votes were needed to create the city, then zoned into a separate quarter

LENS (WW9)Counted to found it, fenced out once it stood

OPENThe exact count differs by source (162/367, 168/362, 368 total); check the original voter list and the July 1896 Miami Metropolis

SOURCEMiami's 125th birthday (WLRN, 2021); Miami's Early Days (Opa-locka exhibit); Paul S. George, "Colored Town: Miami's Black Community, 1896-1930," Florida Historical Quarterly 56:4 (1978), 432-447; Overtown (Wikipedia).