While the current policing debate is about defunding the forces, particularly within the black neighborhood , there was a time when that same neighborhood celebrated law enforcement.
More than sixty years after they patrolled these very streets, two of Miami’s top black police officers returned to Overtown and reflected on their legacy and the location of the city’s premier black police precinct
“A lot of lives were saved by having black officers there,” said Otis Davis, 90, the Miami police division’s first black murder detective.
In the midst of Miami’s Jim Crow period, the city gave in to public tension, eventually opening a black police precinct and employing its first black officers.
Miami’s black population at the time was approximately 40,000 residents. Davis said the white % officers stood guard like cowboys.
He said white officers often arrested residents on trumped-up charges and abused residents and their powers. Understandably, these black first officers and this precinct have been hailed as heroes.
“When they opened this building, there was a black parade welcoming black police officers because they really had been mistreated by white police,” said Clarence Dickinson, the Miami police division’s first black police chief.
These two police legends got their start in the halls of Black Police Station. Dickson was the first black person to attend the police academy.
“The police chief at the time had said publicly that when they were trying to get blacks into the academy, if you want black cops, you have to get them off the streets and give them different training because they can’t leave my academy.” he remembered.
Dickson not only made the cut from the academy, but also rose through the ranks, first in the Black precinct and then throughout the division eventually becoming boss.
The Black enclosure is now a museum and has an entire portion dedicated to Dickson, considered one of his signature hats on distinguished display.
Many of the self-taught forms practiced in the black precinct today are part of the training of all Miami police officers.
CBS4’s Kendis Gibson asked Dickson if he thought George Floyd or Breonna Taylor might be alive right now if there were more black venues.
“The honest truth, perhaps. The chances of them being alive would increase. So it worked,” Dickinson said. Source: CBS Miami.
