Black residents originally congregated in Liberty City because they weren’t welcome elsewhere, Sippio said. Until the 1960s, Black residents were barred from most of the waterfront communities, and there was only one beach where they were allowed to visit. So even though she and her siblings lived less than nine miles from the beach, they, like most Black children in Miami at the time, learned to swim in canals or not at all, Sippio said.

Source: Washington Post July 17, 2021 10:52 UTC