Offered each year during Black History Month in February, Miami-Dade Transit's award-winning Black History Tours feature sites that once reflected the prosperity and independence of Miami's Black community. The tours reveal a time when big-name Black celebrities, such as Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, Marian Anderson, and Billie Holiday, had to leave after performing in Miami Beach. So they stayed in Overtown hotels and performed in late-late shows for Blacks in Overtown nightclubs. When the stars tired of Overtown, they escaped to Georgette's Tea Room in Brownsville, where the legendary Billie Holiday once kept a permanent room.

For more information on the tours, or to participate in the tours, call Miami-Dade Transit at 786-469-5028, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. beginning the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in January. Contact the Black Archives History and Research Foundation Inc., 305-636-2390, to further research the history of Miami's Black communities.  

Image: D.A. Dorsey and M. Athalie Range