As rising seas threaten Miami’s luxurious beachfront, wealthy property owners are pushing inland to higher ground.
The historically black neighborhood of Liberty City has been ignored by developers and policy-makers alike, for generations. Located 10 feet above sea level, Liberty City now becomes more attractive with each rising tide.
At the heart of Liberty City is the Liberty Square housing projects, the first segregated public housing project in the South.
A new documentary film from Academy Award nominated filmmaker Katja Esson begins at the very moment when Liberty Square is being razed to the ground to make way for the new “Liberty City Rising”: a $300 million mixed income development.
“We knew the wall was there to separate us from the white people, but we never talked about it.”
The dramatic changes happening in Miami’s Liberty Square are a looking glass for contemporary issues of wide-scale significance: the affordable housing crisis, the impact of systemic racism and climate gentrification. Miami is experiencing sea level rise before the rest of the country. What is happening in Liberty Square is a prescient story of what is to come, and strategies put to the test here are being closely observed by the rest of the world.
History
Despite its eclectic mix of cultures, Miami is one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States (remnants of the 6-foot-high 'race wall' are still visible today). Liberty Square and the surrounding Liberty City that grew up around it were a cultural hot-spot for famous black entertainers and public figures. Barred from the whites-only beach hotels, where they consistently sold out performances, world-class celebrities like Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne had to stay in Liberty City hotels like the Hampton House. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the first version of his “I Have a Dream” speech there and Malcolm X threw a victory party for Cassius Clay after he beat Sonny Liston in 1965.
“I have a difficult decision to make: whether to stay or to leave.”