27 Jun Overtown Music & Arts Festival
The festival formerly named Overtown Rhythm & Arts Festival is being planned and implemented by Headliner Market Group (HMG) along with volunteers and local leaders of the Overtown Community. This Festival will celebrate the rich history of one of Miami’s earliest settlements. The Festival will take place in the heart of Overtown Business District, NW 3rd Avenue between 8th & 11th Streets and will COME ALIVE for the 4th year on July 19, 2014 from 11am to 7pm with local art, food and entertainment.
The festival will not only bring music and art back to the streets of Overtown, but it will help promote economic development, in this rebounding community which lies in the heart of Miami, by attracting a broad and diverse audience to the doorsteps of local shops and business which will be participating in the event.
About Overtown Miami
Overtown is one of Miami’s earliest historically black communities. The area’s first settlers were black workmen who followed the FEC railroad south as it was extended from Palm Beach to Miami. The area we now know as Overtown was originally called Colored Town and was designated by Henry Flagler and Julia Tuttle as the location for black laborers and their families to live. Black men provided the primary labor force for building Miami and as a result the history of Overtown is inextricably and permanently linked to the story of Miami, “The Magic City”.
Colored Miami began to flourish as a community. By 1905 Colored Town’s Avenue G now known as NW 2nd Avenue and immediate areas had many first class stores and shops. The area grew to include restaurants, grocery stores, barber, beauty, tailor and dressmaker shops, doctor and law offices, a milliner, local insurance company, and a soda water bottling company called Cola Nip. It became a tourist and entertainment destination, not only for local blacks, but people of African descent from around the country. White tourist and white residents frequented this neighborhood to enjoy the entertainment, to partake of the exotic foods, and to listen to popular and gospel music.
Overtown was both nationally and international recognized. It was commonly referred to as “Miami’s Little Broadway” and rivaled the Harlem night scene of New York. Famous artists’ of the day, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, The Impressions, Brook Benton, Red Foxx and a host of others performed and stayed in Knight Beat Lounge and Hotel, The Carver Hotel, The Rockland Palace, The Dorsey, The Marsha Ann and The Lord Calvert. (Courtesy of The Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida, Inc.)
For more information visit OvertownMusicArtsFestival.com
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