Who was Miami’s first Black millionaire? Hint: He made his money in real estate
Growing up in Overtown, the Black Archives Foundation founder Dr. Dorothy Fields was familiar with the work of the late Black businessman and philanthropist Dana Albert Dorsey, considered Miami’s first African-American millionaire.
Before he became a millionaire, D.A. Dorsey worked on the Henry Flagler Florida East Coast Railroad and bought land to provide Black railroad workers with places to live. Born in Fulton County, Georgia, as a sharecropper’s son, he moved to Miami around 1896.
Fields’ mother was born on Overtown’s 10th Street, two blocks from Dorsey’s house on Eighth Street. Her grandparents knew him and his wife Rebecca. Fields learned captivating stories about Dorsey and his family from them. Here’s one story of the man, a pioneering entrepreneur and role model in the Black community remembered again with last week’s anniversary of his death in 1940.
In the 1920s, Dorsey walked through a car showroom in downtown Miami. A white salesman spoke to him and asked if needed something. Dorsey eventually told the salesman which car he wanted to buy. The white salesman scoffed, but Dorsey said he had to go to the local bank and would be back. The salesman was in for a surprise.
“The salesman called the president of the bank and the president asked, ‘What’s the name?’ ” Fields said. “When the salesman said ‘Dorsey,’ the bank president said to sell him two [cars].”
Dorsey owned property behind what is now the preserved historic Dorsey House on Eighth Street, and rented homes to other Black people, Fields said. It was hard for Black residents to find places to rent or own during Jim Crow segregation days, and Dorsey made that easier. Some of the homes near Dorsey’s were no more than three feet apart, but provided ample space for Black residents with limited options.
When Fields returned to Miami after graduating from Atlanta’s Spelman College in 1964, the Overtown neighborhood she grew up in looked vastly different due to the expansion of Interstate 95. Many residents were displaced and businesses were closed, making it look to her like a “ghost town.” She saw the need to help preserve the history in her community and went on to save buildings like Overtown’s Lyric Theater from destruction.
“When the opportunity presented itself for me to do something, the image of the vibrant community where Blacks owned and operated their own businesses, where there was entertainment, where all the goods and services that you needed were, I
Beitel declined to comment.
Renters remain at the mercy of Aimco and Beitel, said veteran real estate lawyer Dennis Eisinger, managing partner at Eisinger Law Edgewater. Eisinger is not involved in this AimcoBeitel project.
For Kiefer Serrato, who is looking at apartments in Little Havana, said he’s most concerned about his next door neighbor Silvia Rosellon. After his mother died from COVID-19 a year and a half ago, Serrato has been looking after the 83-year-old Rosellon and her husband like adoptive grandparents. Rosellon, a Cuban native, and her husband are retired and live with their white and caramelpatched cat Manuela. She worries how she can afford the forced move.
“I don’t have money to move. I have to save up,” Rosellon said. “How am I going to do that, if I still have to continue to pay rent?”
History continues to repeat itself, said Greg Frank, a former Hamilton on the Bay resident. An operations manager for the South Florida Symphony Orchestra, Frank paid $1,700 a month for a one-bedroom, 1,250square-foot took advantage of that opportunity,” she said.
Fields is hopeful that an academic curriculum around historic preservation can develop in the Miami-Dade County public school system. Using Dorsey’s old house as an example, once similar buildings are reconstructed and restored, they can be reused in new ways, she said.
Through redevelopment of historic properties, Fields said students would learn about the historical significance of those properties, while learning the professional construction skills needed to repair them.
Retired Florida International University professor Dr. Marvin Dunn has researched Dorsey’s work for decades. In his research, Dunn found that Dorsey was as integral part of Miami’s Black community as he was a savvy businessman. He cited Dorsey’s partial ownership of land on Fisher Island as an example of that.
“He used to own 23 acres on Fisher Island, which wasn’t an island, was more like a peninsula and became an island later on,” Dunn said. “He purchased that in 1918 and sold it very quickly because Carl Fisher and other whites did not want Black people owning land east of that railroad track.”
Today, however, in the neighborhood where Dorsey lived, developers and gentrification are changing what Overtown looks like and who lives there. With rising real estate prices in Miami, Dunn is doubtful that Black residents will be able to find homes there again.
“The land is so valuable it cannot be saved for people who don’t have billions of dollars to protect it,” he said. “There are people with good intentions. apartment at the Hamilton before leaving last summer.
“These corporations and Aimco are coming in and ruining the communities of Miami. Their buildings are profitable, because of the people in the community that sustain the community” Frank said. “They are able to rent them at whatever a month, because of what we’ve been doing around the city for 30, 50 years.”
That trend will continue in Edgewater and across Miami-Dade, said Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel real estate appraisers and consultants.
Wealthy transplants from across the Northeast and West Coast continue moving to Miami, driving up rental and house prices. And area developers haven’t been able to build enough homes to keep pace with the brisk demand to relocate to South Florida during the pandemic.
“This trend is not done,” Miller said. “It is an ongoing situation. This is part of the story of how Florida is undergoing change.”
Rebecca San Juan: 305.376.2160, @rebecca_sanjuan The current mayor of Miami-Dade County is an excellent mayor. It’s not a lack of political goodwill. It’s the value of land and lack of accommodation for living space.”
Dunn thinks Dorsey would be “appalled” by the development led by entities outside of Overtown that is reshaping the neighborhood.
“Mr. Dorsey didn’t believe in having two-story buildings,” Dunn said. “When they started doing two- and three-story buildings, he didn’t believe in that. He believed in singlefamily homes.”
Dunn explained that Black developers like Dorsey and E.W.F. (Ebenezer Woodberry Franklin) Stirrup — who came to Miami from Harbour Island, Bahamas, in 1888 and learned carpentry to build his own home in Coconut Grove, plus 100 more for other settlers — saw single-family homes as a way for Black people to build wealth. Families would rent homes with the idea that later on they would buy their own properties.
Event curator and Cutler Bay native Alexis Brown did not learn about Dorsey until she was an adult. She had to do her own research because Dorsey’s story wasn’t taught to her as a Miami youth.
“There’s so much Black history in Miami and without Black people there wouldn’t be Miami,” Brown said.
For Brown, 34, Dorsey’s work has an added significance because of her own Miami real estate plans. She and her father, developer James Brown, are working on real estate development projects that will provide residents with affordable housing.
Like Dorsey, Alexis Brown hopes to use real estate as a way of supporting Black residents’ needs for homes. Over time, Brown has been able to save money and accumulate land to make that happen.
“We have been awarded lots from Miami-Dade County for affordable housing and also purchased and assembled 70-80 lots in South Dade and North Dade,” she said. “It’s always been my passion, but when I got out of college we were in the [last] recession.”
Brown’s passion for supporting Black neighborhoods stems from the roots her grandmother Barbara Richardson, 97, and late grandfather Perley Richardson Sr., established in Richmond Heights, a community founded by Black World War II veterans. Brown later learned that Richmond Heights’ curved streets were designed as a way to keep Ku Klux Klan members from having lines of sight when riding through at night.
“It’s very inspiring to learn about the Black history in Miami, letting me know that I have a place here,” she said. “When you look outside, you don’t see a sea of Black people or a sea of Black history year round.”
Brown thinks local entrepreneurs in Black communities today can make a difference by showing up and being present, as Dorsey did a century ago in Miami. While she is not from Overtown, working with organizations like Urban Philanthropies helped her become a fixture in the community and familiar to its residents.
“I really wanted to break through in Overtown because we deserve to have a space that is historically for us,” she said. “Get out in the community. You have to be very intentional about creating a community for us. We have to rebuild it, reimagine and recreate what Black community looks like for us.”
While Dorsey’s name may not immediately ring bells for younger generations of Black Miami entrepreneurs, his legacy of community building through residential real estate and business knowhow lives on through them.