Uncle Luke, the man whose
booty-shaking madness once made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech,
gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke
remembers Miami Commissioner Miller Dawkins, who died early this
month.
One of
Miller Dawkins's legacies is Charles Hadley Park in Liberty City, which was
directly across the street from his house. I always found it interesting that he
pushed to install an Olympic-style pool at Hadley when most of the people in the
community wanted a recreation building and a football stadium. But Dawkins
wanted kids to be versatile beyond popular sports like football and basketball.
In addition to the pool, Dawkins made sure Hadley Park got some of the most
beautiful tennis courts in Miami-Dade County. He believed tennis and swimming
would broaden kids' horizons. He was always looking out for the children. It
didn't matter if they were black, white, or Hispanic.
He made
that pool so that everyone in the city of Miami could use it. He wanted whites
and Hispanics to come to Hadley, which is happening to this day. You have people
from all over Miami using that pool. Anytime I
went to Miami City Hall to meet with him about supporting the Liberty City
Optimist Club, Dawkins came through for the program and the kids.
He was there
for the elderly too, ensuring that the senior center at Hadley was built. His
wife still plays an instrumental role on the seniors' board at Hadley Park. She
is leading the charge to keep his legacy going. If it
wasn't for Dawkins, Miami would not have had its first African-American police
chief, its first African-American city attorney, its first African-American city
clerk, and its first African-American city manager. But he had the respect of
everyone. He was elected city commissioner at a time when there were no
single-member districts.
Just like
every other commissioner from Miami's District 5, he got into trouble. In 1997,
he pleaded guilty to taking $30,000 in bribes and was sentenced to 27 months in
federal prison. Yet the good Dawkins did for the community outweighs the
bad.
Remember, there is only one black on the city
commission, and there has never been a black mayor. In the black community,
people saw Dawkins as the underdog fighting the establishment. When he got out
of prison, you would never have known he had been gone and that he was no longer
the commissioner.
For the folks living in District 5, Miller Dawkins was a
hero.
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