Richard Ward
Interviewed by Carmen Lopez in the year 2000
Carmen Lopez: I would like to focus this interview on is South Miami as a community, how it has changed throughout the years, and you seem to be involved in many aspects of the community. Would you classify your experience in South Miami, as relatively positive or a relatively negative?
Richard Ward: Well, I would classify my involvement with the city of South Miami as both positive and negative, but the most has been very positive. But there are times that things become negative because it’s just general human nature that political situations arise within the city that cause negative feelings. And those have happened periodically over the years. I have been involved in the city of South Miami since 1961 as an educator at South Miami Middle School. I taught there for three years, and I was assistant principal there for twenty-seven years. I was always very active in the city recreation program and the city political situation.
I was teaching civics in spring of ‘62, I required all of my students to participate in the political election locally, and the gentleman who was running for mayor by the name of Clyde Taylor wrote me a letter because I had his daughter in class, and said “If you can ask all these kids to participate why don’t you participate?” So I signed on and started working in Clyde Taylor’s campaign. That was my first political campaign in the City of South Miami. After that first involvement in 1962, I’ve managed political campaigns as a hobby. I had the pleasure of managing the first political campaign of the first African-American to sit on the South Miami city commission, his name was Leroy “Spike” Gibson. Then I had the pleasure of managing the political campaign of the first Hispanic to ever serve on the South Miami city commission which occurred in 1996, and that is the current mayor Julio Robaina.
CL: When and where were you born?
RW: I was born in Bluefield, West Virginia, in 1938, February 25th. I’m almost sixty-three years old. My father managed a croaker warehouse for approximately twenty years, and then he drove an eighteen wheeler for about the last fifteen, sixteen years that he worked and then he retired. He was a member of the Teamsters Union in Virginia. I graduated from high school in Roanoke, Virginia in 1956. My mom never worked. She stayed home and took care of three boys. I have two older brothers.
CL: Would you call your hometown a conservative small town?
RW: Bluefield, West Virginia was in my day, was a very democratic area. West Virginia has always been a very democratic state, more because of unions. Roanoke, Virginia had more of a split between the Democrats and the Republicans. So Roanoke was a little more conservative if we’re talking politics. Bluefield, West Virginia certainly wasn’t liberal in the sense of what we talk about liberalism today. They were mainly democratic because of what they felt the democratic party did for the unions and for the coal miners. Coal mining was the big thing in West Virginia. Where I lived, we were the railroad center of the coal counties that surrounded us. Our county didn’t have much coal. It came in from the mining counties to our county and, by rail, moved it out to all of the country.
CL: What sorts of hobbies were you interested in?
RW: Baseball cards, baseball playing, football playing, boy scouts, hiking and camping. There were four of us that grew up together in the same neighborhood and we camped almost every weekend. As quick as school was out on Friday, we’d have our backpacks ready and we’d walk across the mountain and camped in an area on Log Creek over on the Virginia Side of Eastover Mountain. Bluefield, Virginia was a dual city. It was Bluefield, West Virginia, and Bluefield, Virginia.
CL: So you would classify yourself then as an outdoors type of person?
RW: Yes, very definitely.
CL: Describe some of your religious experience growing up.
RW: Now the interesting thing about my education is, as I grew up, I was also a very faithful church member. I belong to the United Methodist Church. I started out going to the Baptist Church. My dad was a Baptist, my mother was Episcopalian, and I started going to the Baptist church. But when I was ten years old, I had a very close friend that was Jewish. And one day in Sunday school my teacher told me that all Jews were condemned to hell because they didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their savior. I went home almost in tears because Skipper Jason, my good friend who is now deceased, was a Jew and I told my mother “I’m never going back to that church.” As a ten year old I told her this. The next Sunday my mother got me out of bed and said “You’re going to Sunday School.” I didn’t go to Sunday school at the Baptist church. I met a friend on the way to church who went to the Methodist church, and I went to church with him almost a month before my mother found out that I wasn’t going to the Baptist church. Then I changed my membership over to the Methodist church.
CL: Could you describe some of your educational experiences early in life?
RW: My entire education from first grade to twelfth grade I never went to high school or middle school or public school with an African-American student. When I went to Concord College in 1956; it was an all-white college. My second year there, they had one black student. And I had a class with him. One black student! That’s all I was associated with.
CL: What were the different jobs that you’ve had?
RW: Cutting grass (laughter). My first year I worked as a warehouse flunkie (chuckles). You unloaded railroad cars and you loaded trucks and you unpacked toys; it was a toy company. It was a company somewhat like Best, you know, they just had everything. And I worked there one year. And then I was parking director at Wassinga Park which is a big public park in Roanoke, Virginia. I was a recreation aid over there one summer. And I was paid Youth Director of Blandstreet United Methodist Church while I was teaching in West Virginia. And then other than that I’ve been an educator and now, in my retirement I supervise intern teachers for Nova Southeastern University. I currently have 18 interns.
CL: So when was it that you decided that you wanted to be a teacher?
RW: I it was in the ninth grade. I was taking civics from a Ms. Brown. Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower were running for president. And she asked us to do a mock convention and that somebody had to represent each presidential candidate, and I choose Adlai Stevenson, and nobody even knew who Adlai Stevenson was. And he got the democratic nomination for the presidency. I liked social studies so much, and I also liked physical education, that I decided I was gonna be a coach because I played at sports and I decided I wanted to be a coach. And that’s all I wanted to be through my teen years. I went to college to be a coach.
CL: You worked at South Miami Junior High from 1961-1991 when you retired as assistant principal. Would you say that you generally remember that experience fondly?
RW: Very fondly. In fact, I’m still very involved in the school. I meet with a group of teachers every Friday afternoon down at Tony Roma’s or somewhere from 4:00 ‘til about 6:30 every Friday. And I’m still very closely involved with the school and with the community and hope I always will be.
CL: What were some of your fond memories of working at South Miami Middle?
RW: When I taught at Bluefield High school my first year, there might have been ten black students in the whole school out of an enrollment of about 700. I came to Miami, South Miami Middle School was completely white.
In 1963 a fellow teacher and friend of mine, David Lewis and I were both classroom teacher representatives to the Classroom Teachers Association of Dade County and we introduced a resolution to combine the Black Teachers Association and the White Teachers Association in Dade County and it passed. My principal called me in and she said, “You’re way ahead of your time. Don’t do that here, we don’t want to be the school to do that.” Well, our school voted on it, and our school voted thirty-three to seven to endorse combining the black and the white teachers association of Dade County. We took the resolution to the county CTA, Classroom Teachers Association, and it was passed overwhelmingly at their assembly. The black teachers association which was named Dade County Teachers Association passed it overwhelmingly and the two groups combined.
In 1964 we got three black students at South Miami Junior. That was the first time we had black students. I was a student council sponsor. We were having our first back to school dance of the year. Principal calls me in and she says “Do you know the black boy bought a ticket to the dance?” and I said “So?” She said, “What if he asks a white girl to dance?” I said “So what?!” And she “Oh we can’t have this!” Now, she wanted me to go see the black student, his first name was Willy I believe that, and tell him not to ask any white girl to dance. The two girls, the other two black students were girls and they didn’t buy tickets to come to the dance. I refused to talk to Willy. I was setting up the cafeteria outside, so we could collect tickets when the bell rang and the kids and I looked upstairs and there was a counselor upstairs on one knee with his hand over Willy’s shoulder, and I knew exactly what he was telling Willy. Willy, when the bell rang, walked downstairs and went home.
South Miami sort of took a leading role in this desegregation although they didn’t like it. The community didn’t like it. I was persona non grata in my own neighborhood. Even my own wife didn’t like it because I was promoting the desegregation of the South Miami Community. My wife was for desegregation, but she didn’t like J. R. E. Lee because it was not a clean school. My son was in kindergarten at the time. J. R. E. Lee closed after the first year of combination and all of the students were spread back to Ludlam and South Miami Elementary. There was still a lot of white flight.
What happened the following year we got a principal and we started a magnet program. And South Miami Junior High became the Center for the Arts Magnet School. And we went from five hundred and some students all the way up to almost eight hundred and some students in one year. And the following year we went over a thousand again, and South Miami has never been under a thousand
since then. South Miami Elementary came right in behind us two years later, and became an elementary school for the magnet arts. And their enrollment shot up to about 700.
In 1962, I had three girls come into my class; they were all sisters. They were all in the ninth grade and they were from Havana. And they didn’t speak English. Now I got smart and I said “Well, I took two years of Spanish in High School. I don’t remember any of it. Well, I’ll go to night school and learn Spanish.” Ha! Those three girls were speaking English a lot sooner than I was speaking Spanish. Three students that were Spanish. South Miami Middle School today is 58% Hispanic, 24% black, and its test scores rank in the top seven of the fifty-some middle schools of the county. So it’s a good school, and the reason it’s a good school is not because of administration, it’s because the majority of South Miami Middle School teachers that are there right now have been there ten years or more. There’s stability in the faculty.
Some of my fondest memories are being part of the administration that was able to successfully desegregate the school in as successful fashion that you could have had back in those days. And I guess other than the desegregation, and the warm memories of all of the relationships that I had with the faculty and staff I still have at South Miami, the other part would be the cultivating a successful PTSA, Parent Teacher Student Association within the school. We had a very active Parent Teacher Association in the school. We’d have a PTA meeting and we’d have to use the auditorium and have over one hundred fifty, two hundred parents come to the meetings. I went to a PTA meeting over there last year, they had 17 parents. Something’s wrong! And if you don’t have the parent involvement, you’re hurting in the public schools or any school, ok?
CL: How would you compare the kids back then to the kids now?
RW: You know, I’m gonna tell you this about children, I don’t care whether you go back to the early 1900’s or even when I was in school in the 1940’s and the 1950’s and the 1960’s. The kids today are not that much different than they were then. The problem is our society is a lot different because of the media. Children are exposed to things much earlier today than they were then. Today, children know about AIDS; they have AIDS education taught in elementary school and it’s a good thing they do, and I think that’s good. But, no kids are not any more rambunctious today than they were when I was there. I will say this, the school board itself, because it’s elected now by districts rather than county-wide, are less effective. They’re only responsible to the people in their own neighborhood, and they don’t care about the whole county.
CL: What do you think about the quality of education back then as opposed to now?
RW: I believe that the quality of education as far as what students were receiving back then in the early sixties was a little better than what it is today because it was more centralized. The emphasis was on Math, English, Science, and
Social Studies. Today the students have Math, English, Science and Social Studies, but they have so many other things that are being emphasized. I get so aggravated going into the public schools today as a supervisor of intern teachers and all they’re doing is teaching kids how to take an FCAT test, so that they have good FCAT scores. Now, and I say to the teachers, and I say to the principals, and I’ve said it to the superintendent of schools, and a couple of board members: “What are your children going to be able to do when they graduate from high school other than know how to take a damn test?” I don’t say this for the whole school system because there are a lot of principals that refuse to be drug into this FCAT mess. We have a lot of good principals and a lot of good teachers in Dade County.
CL: Can you give me a little bit of insight as to how the whole nature of segregation was within South Miami. Did you find that South Miami was in essence a Southern town where segregation was very strong, where blacks had limited access to many activities and many places?
RW: When I first came here, in 1961, that’s what South Miami was like. South Miami people are very good people in the sense that the majority of the citizens of South Miami follow the law.
They might not like it in the beginning, but they’ll give it a chance. We had a very successful transition in South Miami. The first year I have to tell you when South Miami was desegregated the first year, the black kids were intimidated to no end at the Junior High School, because they were the new kids on the block. The next year, it’s the other way, and ever since then it’s been the other way. The black kids intimidate the white kids, not the white kids intimidate the black kids. The only demonstration that I can remember from desegregation in South Miami I led it. We had students that would walk home from school along sixty-fourth street. And they would walk in the city right of way. And parents homeowners would come out and tell these black kids to get out of their yards and make them walk in the street. And cars are coming both directions on this street. So I got a bunch of black kids one day after school and I said we’re all gonna walk down the middle of sixty-fourth street, and demand that the city of South Miami build a sidewalk. We walked all the way from sixty-seventh avenue through to sixty-second avenue after school, between 3:30 and four o’clock, right in the middle of the street. We didn’t block the cars from traveling through, we just walked down the side of the streets on both sides of the street and within six months, the South Miami City Commission had approved a bicycle path, an asphalt path and it’s still over there.
CL: So you wouldn’t say that South Miami was exactly welcoming of desegregation in general?
RW: Not in the beginning, but once they saw that we could work together they accepted it, more so than a lot of cities in the country. You still have a lot of racial turmoil in your cities, in schools around this county. South Miami, knock on wood, doesn’t suffer that.
CL: As far as Hispanic-Americans go, when did you first see a big influx of Hispanic-Americans into South Miami?
RW: After the Cuban missile crisis. We had an influx, and then we had a mariel boat lift and when, with the Mariel boat lift we didn’t have the impact that other schools had in the county. He only had about twenty-four kids that were from the Mariel boat lift. They put all of the Mariel boat lift kids in one class, and kept them in that one class all day. Immersion they called it. It was academic immersion, English immersion, but cultural immersion it was not. I felt sorry for those kids. That only lasted one year.
CL: How do you think that South Miami reacted to the large influx of Hispanic-Americans into its community?
RW: There was never the anti-Hispanic feeling in South Miami among the political leadership that there was in other predominantly Anglo communities. In the beginning sure there was some resistance, there was some resentment. But not widespread. Again, I say just like with desegregation South Miami has always been a community that is sometimes forced to change but when the change is forced upon them, they accept it. And they accept it in a wholesome manner.
CL: Would you classify South Miami in general as a politically conscious community?
RW: The overall population? No. The citizenry of South Miami for instance, the voter turnout in the city of South Miami had been very low for a couple of years, and then when I managed
Julio Robaina’s campaign for mayor and he was running against an African-American mayor there was a big turnout. We had I guess close to fifty percent of the total voters turnout that
year. But even as hot a contest as that was we had less than fifty percent show up.
CL: I wanted to talk to you about Bakery Center and Sunset place.
They’re sort of notorious within the history of South Miami–.
RW: The Bakery Center was a nightmare. It was a complete total loss from day number one. They built their selves a shopping center that did not appeal did not have any way of appealing to the average South Miami citizen. Period. And when it was built we knew it was gonna fail. The only thing that kept it going was the theaters. And along comes the Simon corporation or whoever and they tear down the Bakery Center and build the Shops at Sunset. And of course throughout the whole battle, I went to the commission, fought to get openings on Red Road and Sunset for the Shops at Sunset. You have one opening on Red Road and you have one opening on Sunset, because those people built that shopping center to keep the shoppers in there, they don’t want them to go out and go into the little shops around South Miami, we wanted to integrate it in. As a result of that, that cost a great deal of resentment among the businessmen at Red Sunset Merchants Association, and a lot of the political forces of the city. Now if you go to the Shops at Sunset right now Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, there’s nobody there. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday it’s loaded. But it’s loaded mostly with young people, because it appeals to the younger generation. South Miami is not a young generation, it’s getting to be a younger community but it’s not as young as most communities. It’s a lot younger than it was ten years ago. I mean this neighborhood that I live in, I used to be one of the youngest people in it. Not anymore. I’m one of the oldest.
CL: Do you think that there’s a problem of pedestrian access to Sunset Place?
RW: Yeah, I sure do. Because first of all it’s not pedestrian friendly to get in there unless you park in the building, in that parking building which is atrocious.
CL: And was Bakery Center pedestrian friendly?
RW: Nope, because the Bakery Center had a bunch of high class shops and South Miami is not a high class shopping clientele. It’s a middle level income, South Miami is. We have wealthy people who live in South Miami, but they don’t shop at places that they had in the Bakery Center. So the Bakery Center really didn’t have anything but the theaters. And a few tourists who came to look at it.
CL: South Miami is right next to Coral Gables. Would you say that there was resentment between South Miami and Coral Gables for that reason?
RW: Occasionally.
CL: Would you say that it feels like its poorer cousin?
RW: No. Back in the 60’s there was a lot of resentment in South Miami because of the Gables, and there was a lot of looking down the nose from the Gables at South Miami, but that’s not–. That isn’t apparent today. I mean there’s still you know, the Gables is still the more affluent community, but South Miamians don’t let that bother them. And I don’ think the political hierarchy, the social hierarchy of Coral Gables looks over at South Miami and said “You’re our little step child.” They don’t do that anymore. Because they know the integration of these communities together is very important, both politically, and economically. And the City of Coral Gables, the City of South Miami have their problems both politically and economically, but they try to work them out together.
CL: Do you know anything about the relationship of South Miami to the University of Miami?
RW: There are quiet a few people that work at the University of Miami that live in the City of South Miami, and I do know that there is a lot of explorations right now at the University of Miami about expanding over into the South Miami area.
CL: How about as far as access to the University of Miami?
RW: Most of the kids from South Miami that go to the University of Miami on scholarship or parts of scholarships.
CL: Do you feel that that has served to block the access to the University of Miami? Do you feel that it’s very easy to get financial aid for the South Miami college students?
RW: I have never felt a resentment in the community toward the University of Miami, because they have a higher tuition. I think most kids and they’re interested in the University of Miami, either work at the University of Miami and get the waiver, or they have, look for some sort of scholarship.
CL: Do you have some opinions about South Miami parks and facilities of recreation.
RW: I served as chairman of the Recreation Advisory Board for about eight years for the City of South Miami.
CL: What do you think about the parks in South Miami, about the conditions, about their maintenance, their upkeep?
RW: Well, since the current recreation director’s come in Ana Garcia, it’s improved tremendously. Before her, it was atrocious. It was absolutely atrocious. But in the last couple of years, Ana’s done a real good job to upgrade the parks.
CL: How about access to parks in general throughout South Miami?
RW: Well let me tell you one of the biggest disappointments in my relationship with the City of South Miami. I was chairman, of the Recreation Advisory Board as I told you for eight years. Our advisory board came up with a project of where we wanted to build a swimming pool and recreation center in the northeast corner of the South Miami field where Palmer Park is right next to South Miami Middle School. We studied this for almost three years. We got all kinds of input. We went before the commission with our final recommendation with drawings and documents and the cost and everything. This was about 1974,‘75. And we made our presentation, and it was a long presentation, and it was voted down. It took four votes to vote it through and it was voted down three to two. I was so angry, I went up to Gene Willis who was a commissioner at the time, and she was one of the two votes, she and Mayor Bloch had voted against it, and I raised cain. Spike Gibson was sitting just to her right and she turned to Spike, commissioner Gibson and she said, “Is what he’s telling me the truth?” And Spike said “I’m afraid it is.” And she said, well what can we do about it?” And I said “When he comes back in, call, the meeting to order, you move for reconsideration, and if you get four votes for reconsideration, and move to approve it four to one, we’ll get this thing through.” Well, when Mayor Bloch rapped the gavel, to call the meeting back to order, Gene Willis moved for reconsideration, because you had to be on the losing side in order to move for reconsideration. And Mayor Bloch almost lost his gavel; he was so dumbfounded he was sure it was all over. Well, they voted it through and they approved it four to one. Now, the city manager and Mayor Bloch–. We had the money to build it. And Mayor Bloch and the city manager that morning, the following morning in there started spending all of this money on other projects so we wouldn’t have enough money to build that facility, because to build the facility we had to go now through the school board to get the final approval. We finally got the final approval from the School Board to build it there. But by the time we got the final approval of the School Board, Bloch had spent all the money! Mayor Bloch and the city manager had spent all the money. He didn’t want that recreation center. Now they’re building what they call the Multipurpose Center over at Murray Park. And it’s long overdue. It’s not gonna have a swimming pool, and they’re spending more money over there and they have that thing, they haven’t opened it. They’ve been building on it for almost three years. And they haven’t opened it yet because of construction problems.
CL: Do you feel that sports plays a big role within the community of South Miami? Do you see a lot of kids getting involved in sports teams?
RW: Our African-American community is so sports conscious it’s pitiful. They are into the football program. When I first started coaching there were no blacks in the program. The second year we brought blacks into the program. And today if you go to South Miami, Pop Warner, it’s not Pop Warner now it’s something else, if you go to South Miami and look at their football program it’s probably, I’d say, ninety-nine percent African-American. If you go to the baseball program, it’s probably about eighty percent white, Hispanic and Anglo, the Khoury League.
CL: Do you feel that South Miami has that small town feeling that many of its residents feel it has?
RW: I’d like to say “Yes.” The old timers like myself still feel the small town feeling of South Miami, but I’m afraid it’s not realistic in this day and time with the development that’s going on in our community. We’re still a small town inside a great big metropolitan area. But not as small town as we used to be.
CL: When do you feel that the small town feeling sort of disintegrated?
RW: A little bit each year started back in probably the mid-eighties. I just felt it just drifting a little bit each year.
CL: Do you think US 1 had a lot to do with that?
RW: Absolutely, and that’s why you see so many no left turn signs all over or no right turn signs all over the city its because they don’t want the traffic driving through the neighborhood, as they’re on their way to work. US 1 has always been a traffic nightmare through the City of South Miami. Always. And it always will be.
CL: Do you remember in the 1980’s when the Metrorail was inaugurated? Do you feel that it helped South Miami?
RW: I don’t think the Metrorail has helped South Miami economically in noticeable fashion, at all. I don’t feel that Metrorail has been successful to the point that we were told it would be successful in cutting down traffic in US 1, anywhere near what it should have. I rode Metrorail yesterday. And it was at 6 o’clock in the evening; I was coming from Downtown Miami and I looked out at US 1; it’s bumper to bumper. And I’m sitting in Metrorail, and there are empty seats.
I remember all of the hassles that the county commission went through trying to get the Metrorail approved, trying to find funding for it, trying to get approval for it, ripping up the old railroad tracks, all of the construction that went on that curtailed traffic in our area. It was just a humongous project that took an awful lot of time for our political and business community, and am I glad we have it? Yes. But has it been successful to the way they promised us it would be successful? No.
CL: Do you feel that living in South Miami fits its motto which is “The City Of Pleasant Living?”
RW: Yes I do and ninety percent of the time it is the city of pleasant living. However, there are times that things occur politically, or business-wise that make the people feel that it’s not so pleasant. But yes it does fit its motto overall with the “City of Pleasant Living.”
CL: What would be the things that you most like about living in South Miami, what would they be?
RW: The people, and of course the climate (laughs). I love warm weather. The people, they’re warm and they’re sincere. They’re straightforward people. There aren’t many communities today that you can go door to door, knocking on the door and say “Hey this is so and so running for mayor of the City of South Miami I would like for you to vote for him.” A lot of people wouldn’t even open their doors. But in South Miami, I go in the African-American community. I go in the Hispanic communities, and I go into the Anglo communities, and I’m welcome with courtesy. They open the door, they listen to you. The people are warm, sincere people, in the City of South Miami and they’re basically a very honest group of people. We have five commissioners right now, that I don’t agree with all five of them all the time, but I do find that I can feel comfortable in the fact that I know all five of them are as far as I know extremely honest, sincere, well-intended individuals.
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