Our Work

The Miami-Dade TEAR Initiative:

  1. Gathers and compiles the history of racial terrorism in South Florida through oral histories, archival repositories, and other documentation.

  2. Provides educational materials and programming for schools, community institutions, and the wider public about this history.

  3. Convenes and facilitates public dialogue with community members, inclusive of the descendants of the victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of these acts of terror.

  4. Organizes memorial projects in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. History of Racial Terror in South Florida Among many instances of racial terrorism in South Florida, there were three actual recorded lynchings that took place in Miami-Dade County in the early 1920s.

On November 29, 1920, the mere suggestion that 19-year-old J.B. Harris intended to assault the woman whom he allegedly surprised in her bedroom was sufficient for a mob to gather, capture him at his place of work, and hang him from a tree within a matter of hours.

On June 15, 1923, William “Grey Eye” Simmons and Robert Gaines were riddled with bullets by pursuing mobs in two separate incidents. The lynchings followed the shooting death of City of Homestead Marshal William C. Bryant in a physical confrontation with Simmons, in which Gaines was alleged to be an accomplice.

Truth & Reconciliation

Truth and reconciliation processes have been used in more than 50 nations as tools for societies experiencing social conflict to overcome intergroup tensions, acts of collective violence, and widespread human rights violations. Rooted in the philosophy of restorative justice promoted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other peacebuilders, victims and perpetrators are brought together for a public truth-telling process that focuses on sharing experiences and accountability for the actions of each participant. The result is a restructuring or “re-storying” of dominant narratives that shape the public’s understanding of past events to be more inclusive, transparent, and “truthful.”