Deemed Poor

Deemed Poor

Balancing spirit

chasing worth in fields of death

Can I have what’s mine?

Image of X Ray clinic in Overtown, Miami. Dr. Samuel H. Johnson constructed the X-Ray Clinic in 1939. He arrived in Miami as a child in 1903 and became the first black radiologist in South Florida. Black residents were denied access to x-ray facilities at Miami’s City Hospital, and Johnson created his clinic to serve the area’s black population. Dr. Johnson’s brother, John, practiced law from the X-Ray Clinic between 1947 and 1955. In 1949, John Johnson hosted Thurgood Marshall, then legal counsel for the NAACP, at the clinic. Dr. Johnson continued to operate the clinic until 1967. He donated his former office building to the Black Archives in 1981.(2) Much like any other historical Black sites in Miami Florida this one is no stranger to lack of care, preservation, or even proper public identification to its significance to Miami.

The term “redlining” was coined by sociologist John McKnight in the 1960s and derives from how the federal government and lenders would literally draw a red line on a map around the neighborhoods they would not invest in based on demographics alone. Black inner-city neighborhoods were most likely to be redlined. (1)

Redline maps created in 1941 still have an effect on current properties in Miami Florida.