On a June evening last year, Geryl Dennis stood in front of a room of more than 150 people at Hialeah\u2019s Milander Center. Purple, black and silver decorations filled the venue. A ten-foot-tall marquee glowed with the number \u2018100.\u2019<\/p>\n
He was taking the stage at a centennial celebration for Hialeah\u2019s historically Black neighborhood, Seminola.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood evening, good evening, good evening. Gotta get grandma and grandaddy good right here,\u201d said Dennis, setting up large cardboard cutout photos of his late family members. \u201cPerfect seat in the house to make sure they see what\u2019s going on right here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 52-year-old was born and raised in the neighborhood. He has become his family\u2019s historian and advocate.<\/p>\n
Dennis\u2019 great-grandfather, Ben Marshall, was among the first Black settlers of the neighborhood in the early 1900s \u2014 long before it even had a name.<\/p>\n
In 1904, he and James H. Bright, a businessman and cattle rancher, traveled from Missouri to South Florida. Bright and aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss would later co-found the city of Hialeah.<\/p>\n
Marshall, a horse domesticator by trade, worked closely with Bright. According to the Dade Heritage Trust, he was Bright\u2019s right-hand worker.<\/p>\n
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Seminola residents and Hialeah city leaders gather for the official proclamation declaring June 21, 2024, as Seminola Day.<\/p>\n
(Geryl Dennis)<\/p>\n
But Dennis says his great-grandfather and the other Black families that first settled in Seminola were more than laborers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our families that used their hands to build homes, clear brush, pave roads, train horses, start businesses, build schools, build churches and farm the land. Our history is sacred, it belongs to us. Our ancestors worked hard and sacrificed too much for us to let this great legacy drift into the forgotten memories of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Members of the Seminola neighborhood join a parade.<\/p>\n
(City of Hialeah via Facebook)<\/p>\n
The Seminola 100 celebration was organized by longtime residents of the community with financial support from the city of Hialeah.<\/p>\n
Then-Mayor Esteban \u201cSteve\u201d Bovo gave remarks at the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor communities that fail to educate their children of how we got to where we got here, we\u2019re condemned to repeat the same mistakes past generations have made,\u201d he said. \u201cI want you to know, as your mayor, that we feel strongly about your participation \u2026 in being able to celebrate [Hialeah\u2019s] 100th year anniversary.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for some members of the family, it wasn’t enough. They told Bovo and city officials that Seminola and Ben Marshall’s history should be highlighted in Hialeah’s official centennial celebrations as an important part of the city’s story.<\/p>\n
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Bertha Marshall Chavis (left) and her niece Jamei (right) look through images of their late family members.<\/p>\n
(Helen Acevedo\/WLRN)<\/p>\n
\u201cGod forbid, I don\u2019t want our legacy to die,\u201d said Bertha Marshall Chavis, the 67-year-old granddaughter of Marshall.<\/p>\n
But more than a year later, Hialeah\u2019s centennial celebrations are almost over, and Seminola has not been included.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s centennial website mentions major developments in 1924: a new bridge connecting Hialeah to Miami Springs, a new water plant and public library. But no mention of Seminola\u2019s founding that year. Events on the website celebrate women\u2019s history, but not Black history.<\/p>\n
Despite Bovo\u2019s words about educating communities, Seminola appears nowhere in a public school curriculum developed by the city to highlight local history.<\/p>\n
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Geryl Dennis and his aunt Bertha scan through family photos they’ve collected.<\/p>\n
(Helen Acevedo\/WLRN)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis history needs to be officially recognized. And we’re still here. And [Ben Marshall\u2019s] legacy and his progeny is part of the city of Hialeah Centennial. Not Seminola \u2014 Hialeah,\u201d said Dennis.<\/p>\n
WLRN requested interviews or comments from former mayor Bovo and the current mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves, as well as every member of the city council.<\/p>\n
Only one council member \u2014 Jesus Tundidor \u2014 spoke to WLRN.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like for them to include everything that has to do with Hialeah,\u201d he said. \u201cBefore incorporation, starting from our founders, right? James Bright, Glenn Curtiss, and then everything that happens from that moment on should be included in the history of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hands that built Hialeah<\/p>\n
Hialeah is the second-largest city in Miami-Dade County, and is best known today for its vibrant Cuban community \u2014 the largest concentration in the country, according to the American Immigration Council.<\/p>\n
But long before Hialeah became the center of Cuban American culture, African American families were putting down roots and constructing the city.<\/p>\n
By the 1920\u2019s, 160 acres of the Curtiss-Bright Ranch, a dairy and cattle farm on what\u2019s now known as Hialeah Drive, were carved out for what\u2019s now the Hialeah Park Racetrack.<\/p>\n
Black laborers were hired to build and maintain it and other landmarks, like Hialeah\u2019s first manufacturer, a soap factory.<\/p>\n
Due to segregation laws, they couldn\u2019t live in the area. So, Bright provided a plot of land for them. In 1924, the neighborhood was officially designated Seminola.<\/p>\n
Prior to development, indigenous tribes like the Seminoles were the original inhabitants of the area. In fact, the city of Hialeah’s name comes from the Seminole word for “high prairie.”<\/p>\n
Seminola’s name is believed to derive from the word Seminole, which, according to the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office, comes from the Spanish word “cimarr\u00f3nes” which means “runaways” or “wild ones.” The tribe says that while some saw the name as an insult, others wore it as a badge of honor.<\/p>\n
Miami historian Marvin Dunn, who has done extensive research on Black Seminoles and the state\u2019s Black and indigenous history, says many people may not know about the neighborhood because of what\u2019s historically happened with Black and Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aA lot of what happened to Black people and Native Americans involved taking their land. And then once that happens, people don’t want that story to become well known. And that’s a part of why I think that history is so buried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seminola\u2019s torch bearers\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ben Marshall didn\u2019t live long enough to see what Seminola would come to be. He died in 1937.<\/p>\n
His legacy would live on through his children.<\/p>\n
Steve Marshall Sr. and his wife, Geneva, would become strong advocates for the neighborhood. The two pushed for better housing, improved roads and better infrastructure, among other local issues, and were successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandmother and grandfather were very influential people in Hialeah-Seminola politically. They were activists. He was the second Black police officer in the city of Hialeah,\u201d said Dennis.<\/p>\n
But, for the Marshall family, Steve and Geneva were much more. Their home on West 23rd Street acted like a headquarters for the family and neighborhood. Dennis lives there today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were the focal point of the family. Everything centered around them,” he said. “After school, everybody was here, all of the family events were here, all of the parties were here, like everything took place here in this home.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Geryl Dennis and Bertha Marshall-Chavis pose in front of the Marshall home with family photos.<\/p>\n
(WLRN)<\/p>\n
Bertha Marshall Chavis remembers Gwen Cherry, the first Black woman to serve in the Florida Legislature, visiting their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe used to come here and sit and mediate with my mom, they would have little talks. And it just gave that drive to want to be someone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatching my mom converse with these people, my father converse with these people\u2026 Mother and dad were role models for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 1980, South Florida, including Hialeah, saw an influx of Cuban migrants arrive after the Mariel Boatlift. According to the University of Miami, at the time, more than 125,000 Cubans came to South Florida.<\/p>\n
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A young girls swim team poses for photos at the Rudolph Reid Pool in Seminola.<\/p>\n
(City of Hialeah via Facebook)<\/p>\n
Seminola\u2019s Black population began to decline in the years and decades following.<\/p>\n
\u200aAriana Hern\u00e1ndez-Reguant, a research associate at the department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University, said the influx was part of a population turnover in the area.<\/p>\n
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Residents gathered sporting Johnny L. Cotson T-shirts — likely at Johnny L. Cotson Park.<\/p>\n
(City of Hialeah via Facebook)<\/p>\n
As a cultural anthropologist, she’s documented the lives and stories of Seminola residents.<\/p>\n
At the same time that “many immigrants had settled in the area… because of upward mobility, many locals had left,” she said.<\/p>\n
Despite the changes, the Marshalls continued their advocacy in the community. Dennis recalls seeing Hialeah\u2019s first Cuban mayor stopping by.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could remember Raul Martinez coming here all the time, I remember police chiefs and lieutenants, [coming] to sit with my grandfather.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve and Geneva Marshall lived in Seminola until they died.<\/p>\n
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Marshall Way sits on West 23rd Street, between West 6th and 7th Court. It was designated by Miami-Dade County and the city of Hialeah in 2011.<\/p>\n
(Sherrilyn Cabrera\/WLRN)<\/p>\n
Three years before Steve\u2019s death in 2013, the city of Hialeah and Miami-Dade County co-designated Marshall Way \u2014 named after Steve Marshall Sr.<\/p>\n
Bovo was a Miami-Dade commissioner at the time, and was the co-sponsor of the street renaming.<\/p>\n
The family is now advocating for a historical marker to be placed in front of the Marshall home, on Marshall Way.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter my grandfather passed, I guess I kinda morphed into a role, I can’t replace him, but kinda his position of keeping things going with the family,\u201d said Dennis. \u201cI\u2019ve been an active participant in making sure that our history is known.\u201d<\/p>\n