Historic Virginia Key Beach celebrates its 65th anniversary Sunday, August 1 with an ice-cream social from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. that includes free rides on its signature historic amusement rides - a miniature train and seaside carousel - plus a chance to explore a surprisingly secluded beach next to a major metropolitan area.
Virginia Key Beach Park - which is accessible directly off the Rickenbacker Causeway just before the Bear Cut Bridge - officially opened in 1945 as a “colored only beach.”
It soon became the preeminent gathering place for a marginalized community, site of church picnics and family reunions as well as a favorite destination for visiting performers and civic leaders, including the Reverend Martin Luther King.
Today, it is a “paradise renewed,” a restored environmental gem. The park’s brochure recalls its storied past and more recent struggles to preserve and protect this community space from commercial development and privatization:
Historic Virginia Key Beach Park represents the focal recreational space where the black community at-large was allowed to gather, commune and create the conditions for solidarity necessary for a civil rights movement to flourish.
Miami’s former segregated beach, like no other recreational park of its kind during the twentieth century, established a significant turning point in terms of forging compassionate negotiation and creative communication between black and non-African American socieities.
Indeed, the message of Historic Virginia Key Beach Park is contained in the power of responsible citizenry and leadership which led to the second reclamation of the property in 1999 by the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust.
IF YOU GO:
Virginia Key Beach Park, 4020 Virginia Beach Drive, Virginia Key
(305) 960-4600
www.virginiakeybeachpark.net
Resources:
Historic Virginia Key Beach celebrates its 65th Anniversary with an ice cream social Sunday, August 1.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=105997039454244&index=1
South Florida Times news article on budget crisis facing the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust.
http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4891&Itemid=144
@All Rights Reserved 2010.
On Facebook: Friends of Virginia Key
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