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IN MEMORIAM: Garth C. Reeves, Sr., Retired Miami Times Publisher, Dies

CHICAGO CRUSADER — Regarded as a titan in the Black Press, Reeves was widely respected in Miami for using his power and influence to advance the agenda of the city’s Black community. After experiencing the pain and humiliation of segregation in parks, schools and the U.S. military, Reeves grew into an uncompromising crusader who smashed racial barriers in some of the most prominent organizations in Miami and the nation.

Published

6 years ago

November 29, 2019

Oakland Post

Retired publisher, Garth C. Reeves, Sr., of The Miami Times’, died on Monday, November 25. He was 100.

By Erick Johnson, Chicago Crusader

Garth C. Reeves, Sr., The Miami Times’ retired publisher who became the enduring patriarch of a family newspaper dynasty after decades of fighting the political establishment and while guiding the Black community through the city’s racial problems, died on Monday, November 25. He was 100.

Regarded as a titan in the Black Press, Reeves was widely respected in Miami for using his power and influence to advance the agenda of the city’s Black community. After experiencing the pain and humiliation of segregation in parks, schools and the U.S. military, Reeves grew into an uncompromising crusader who smashed racial barriers in some of the most prominent organizations in Miami and the nation.

During his lifetime, Reeves’ newspaper got a police chief fired, ended the career of a a Miami Mayoral, supported a boycott that cost Miami Beach’s tourism industry millions, and unapologetically called riots “protests” or rebellions. He stared down Miami’s political establishment that for decades had been accused of shutting out Blacks in government as Hispanics rose to power in the city’s political and business establishments.

THE MIAMI TIMES became the “Voice of the Black Community” after publishing stories that advocated for people of color during the Civil Rights Movement. (Courtesy of the University of Florida/Miami Times Archives)

He urged his journalists to write from a Black perspective, one that saw the struggle through a different lens than white newspapers.

His newspaper career spanned at least eight decades. At the height of Reeves’ leadership, The Miami Times earned the name, “The Voice of Miami’s Black Community.” One of the last great Black publishers, Reeves’ death closes a significant chapter in The Miami Times’ illustrious history.

Reeves was born February 12, 1919 in Nassau, Bahamas. That same year, Reeves’ father, Harry Ethelbert Sigismund Reeves, moved to Miami where he founded the Magic Printing Company in Overtown, the city’s historic Black, once-thriving neighborhood near downtown. Harry Ethelbert Sigismund Reeves in 1920 founded the Miami Sun, which closed because of a paper shortage during World War I. In 1923, The Miami Times was founded. Reeves was just four years old.

Garth C. Reeves, Sr. was among many Blacks who attended Miami’s esteemed Booker T. Washington Senior High School, the city’s oldest predominately Black high school that was built when students of color were not accepted at white public schools. Black students at Booker T. were given secondhand text books and football gear that came from white schools.

THE MIAMI TIMES iconic headquarters. The newspaper moved four times before settling in Miami’s predominately Black Liberty City neighborhood.

In 1923, Harry Reeves started The Miami Times at NW 8th Street and 3rd Avenue. It would move four more times in the Overtown neighborhood. When Interstate-95 was built through Overtown, it displaced thousands of Blacks. Many fled north to the Liberty City community, where The Miami Times sits at its present location, 900 NW 54 Street.

In 1940, Reeves graduated from Florida A&M University, a major, historically Black school in Tallahassee, FL. In 1942, Reeves was drafted to serve in the Army during World War II. During an interview in 1999, Reeves recalled a trip on a train to the Pacific coast to go overseas. Despite repeated requests, a white train conductor refused to give Reeves something to eat in spite of him having meal coupons. Reeves went to the military police, who told him to do what the white conductor said, or face being locked up on the train. Reeves was forced to pay for his meal because he could not go into the segregated dining car.

Experiences like those would fuel Reeves’ passion for Black journalism’s role in exposing racial injustices while advocating for the needs of disenfranchised people of color.

After completing his service in 1946, Reeves returned to The Miami Times. By then, Blacks could not sit at segregated diners downtown. Members of the Klu Klux Klan would often parade through Miami’s bustling downtown. Parks and schools did not accept Blacks either and living conditions among Blacks worsened as slums in Overtown increased.

Reeves joined Reverend Theodore Gibson, the president of the local NAACP Chapter and began leading protests for better conditions for Blacks in Miami. Out of 28 beaches, only Virginia Key Beach was open to Blacks. On November 7, 1957, Reeves led a group of seven Black leaders to Crandon Park, a segregated white beach near Miami. Reeves and the men earlier talked to several county commissioners, saying that as taxpayers they had the right to frequent Crandon Park or any segregated beach. Wearing their bathing suits under their clothes, Reeves and the men took off their slacks and went into the water while several police officers watched. Blacks began frequenting other white beaches after the incident.

Blacks were not allowed to play at city-owned golf-courses in the 1940s. But that changed when Reeves and Gibson filed a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a landmark case, Rice v. City of Miami, the Supreme Court ruled that the city could not continue accepting tax money to build and maintain golf courses while denying its use to all residents.

In an interview on the History Miami Museum website, Reeves recalled an experience he had when Dr. Martin Luther King came to Miami during the Civil Rights Movement.

“When Martin Luther King came down, I attended some of his meetings. My friend was a good friend of King’s and I used to attend meetings where he would preach to us about nonviolence. I remember talking to Martin a few times and I said, “Martin, you really believe that if I was somewhere and a white guy spat on my face, you think I would walk away from that? I said I’d try and kill that son of a b—-. He said, ‘That’s why you’ve got to try to learn to control yourself.’ I liked him.”

That was Reeves the activist.

GARTH C. REEVES, SR. in 1981 reviews the front page of The Miami Times with son Garth C. Reeves Jr., who died in 1982. (Photo Courtesy of History Miami Museum/The Miami News).

Reeves, as the publisher of The Miami Times, was just as fierce. It was the only job Reeves would have throughout his life. He worked his way up the ranks as columnist, reporter, managing editor, and editor. When Reeves’ father died in 1970, Reeves became publisher.

By then The Miami Times had established itself as the Black newspaper of record.

During the 1960s The Miami Times ran a front-page story advocating for the termination of Miami Police Chief Walter Headly, whose Stop and Frisk policy of searching Blacks lit up racial tensions in the city. Headly was eventually fired and the Times readership grew.

When four Miami police officers were acquitted in May, 1980 of killing Arthur McDuffie, a Black salesman, Blacks took to the streets. White newspapers and local television stations described it as a riot. With Reeves at the helm, The Miami Times called the incident a “protest.” When another Miami police officer was acquitted in 1993 for killing two Black motorists in Overtown, The Miami Times called the civil unrest a rebellion.

There were other highlights under Reeves’ leadership at The Miami Times.

In 1985, Mayor Maurice Ferre lost the Black vote and was defeated in his re-election bid after The Miami Times ran a series of editorials criticizing the mayor for firing Howard Gary, Miami’s first Black city manager.

In 1993, Reeves and The Miami Times published editorials and stories supporting a boycott of Miami Beach hotels that cost the tourism industry millions of dollars.

Black leaders accused county leaders of snubbing Nelson Mandela after they withdrew plans to give him a proclamation and key to the city when the anti-apartheid leader publicly expressed his support for Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro.

The National Bar Association and ACLU were among many organizations that did not bring their conventions to Miami Beach in support of the boycott.

The boycott lasted three years and cost the tourism industry between $20 to $50 million. Mandela was given an official proclamation and the hotel industry implemented programs to boost Blacks in its facilities. Miami Beach got its first Black-owned luxury hotel, the Royal Palm Crowne Plaza.

“It was important that we had a communication outlet to get our message out,” said H.T. Smith, a prominent Miami attorney who spearheaded the boycott. “The mainstream media would not give us any coverage. The Miami Times was essential to the boycott’s success. The boycott would not have been successful without The Miami Times. And our friendship grew as a result of this partnership.”

Former Miami Times executive editor Mohamad Hamaludin, who worked for 15 years at the newspaper, said, “Reeves was a fine gentleman. By the time I got to The Miami Times, he and the staff had already established it as a voice for people who didn’t have a voice.”

Reeves was the first Black to serve on the boards of the Miami-Dade College, Barry University, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, and the United Way of Dade County. He also served as organizing chairman of the board for National Industrial Bank, which was the first integrated bank in the State of Florida.

While serving on many of these boards, Reeves pushed them to hire more Blacks when they were reluctant to do so. As a board member of Miami-Dade College, Reeves threatened to lead a vote to stop doing business with the school’s law firm because it resisted his calls to hire Black attorneys in its offices.

Reeves assisted Crusader Publisher Dorothy R. Leavell in bringing the NNPA Annual Convention to Gary in 1983 after Black political power gained a foothold in the Steel City.

“He believed in the Black Press very deeply,” said Leavell who first met Reeves in 1962. “Whatever he did, he was always on the right side of the battle. He remained a forward thinker to the very end. He was truly one of the last of the great Black publishers from the old school in the Black Press.”

Today, The Miami Times is the oldest and largest Black newspaper in the Southeast. For the past two years it has been named Best Black Newspaper by the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), which represents over 200 Black newspapers across the country. In 2011, NNPA named Reeves Publisher of the Year. In 2017, Reeves was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.

In 2017, Miami recognized Reeves with an honorary street sign at 6 Street and NW 2 Avenue near the Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida where he was a board member.

Reeves was a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., and a founding member of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in Miami, Florida.

He was awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Miami, Barry University and Florida Memorial University.

For years, Reeves had provided scholarships to aspiring journalism students at his high school alma mater, Booker T. Washington.

Reeves served for 10 years as president of the Amalgamated Publishers Inc. in New York City, which represented over one hundred African American-owned newspapers throughout the United States. He was also elected to serve two terms as president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

He retired in 1994 and assumed the role of publisher emeritus but Reeves remained active as a prominent leader in the Black community.

Reeves outlived both of his children. In 1982, Reeves’ son, Garth C. Reeves, Jr., died of colon cancer when just 30 years old. This past September, Reeves’ daughter, Rachel died at 68. His grandson, Garth Basil Reeves now heads the family newspaper dynasty at just 29.

This article originally appeared in The Chicago Crusader.

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COMMENTARY: The National Protest Must Be Accompanied with Our Votes

Just as Trump is gathering election data like having the FBI take all the election data in Georgia from the 2020 election, so must we organize in preparation for the coming primary season to have the right people on ballots in each Republican district, so that we can regain control of the House of Representatives and by doing so, restore the separation of powers and balance that our democracy is being deprived of.

Published

4 days ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper. File photo..

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

As thousands of Americans march every week in cities across this great nation, it must be remembered that the protest without the vote is of no concern to Donald Trump and his administration.

In every city, there is a personal connection to the U.S. Congress. In too many cases, the member of Congress representing the people of that city and the congressional district in which it sits, is a Republican. It is the Republicans who are giving silent support to the destructive actions of those persons like the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Director, who are carrying out the revenge campaign of the President rather than upholding the oath of office each of them took “to Defend The Constitution of the United States.”

In California, the primary comes in June 2026. The congressional races must be a priority just as much as the local election of people has been so important in keeping ICE from acquiring facilities to build more prisons around the country.

“We the People” are winning this battle, even though it might not look like it. Each of us must get involved now, right where we are.

In this Black History month, it is important to remember that all we have accomplished in this nation has been “in spite of” and not “because of.” Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Today, the struggle is to maintain our very institutions and history. Our strength in this struggle rests in our “collectiveness.” Our newspapers and journalists are at the greatest risk. We must not personally add to the attack by ignoring those who have been our very foundation, our Black press.

Are you spending your dollars this Black History Month with those who salute and honor contributions by supporting those who tell our stories? Remember that silence is the same as consent and support for the opposition. Where do you stand and where will your dollars go?

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Why Black Parents Should Consider Montessori

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — I have found that there are some educational approaches that consistently provide a safer, more enriching, and more affirmative environment for Black children. The Montessori method, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori and introduced to the U.S. in the early 20th century, is one such approach.

Published

6 days ago

February 9, 2026

Oakland Post

By Laura Turner-Essel, PhD

As a mother of four children, I’ve done A LOT of school shopping. I don’t mean the autumn ritual of purchasing school supplies. I mean shopping for schools – pouring over promotional materials, combing through websites, asking friends and community members for referrals to their favorite schools, attending open houses and orientations, comparing curriculums and educational philosophies, meeting teachers and principals, and students who all claim that their school is the best.

But keep in mind – I’m not just a mom of four children. I’m a mom of four Black children, and I’m also a psychologist who is very interested in protecting my little ones from the traumatic experience that school can too often become.

For Black children in the United States, school can sometimes feel more like a prison than an educational institution. Research shows that Black students experience school as more hostile and demoralizing than other students do, that they are disciplined more frequently and more harshly for typical childhood offenses (such as running in the halls or chewing gum in class), that they are often labeled as deviant or viewed as deficient more quickly than other children, that teachers have lower academic expectations of Black students (which, in turn, lowers those students’ expectations of themselves), and that Black parents feel less respected and less engaged by their children’s teachers and school administrators. Perhaps these are some of the underlying reasons that Black students tend to underperform in most schools across the country.

The truth is that schools are more than academic institutions. They are places where children go to gain a sense of who they are, how they relate to others, and where they fit into the world. The best schools are places that answer these questions positively – ‘you are a valuable human being, you are a person who will grow up to contribute great things to your community, and you belong here, with us, exploring the world and learning how to use your gifts.’ Unfortunately, Black children looking for answers to these universal questions of childhood will often hit a brick wall once they walk into the classroom. If the curriculum does not reflect their cultural experiences, the teachers don’t appear to value them, and they spend most of their time being shamed into compliance rather than guided towards their highest potential, well…what can we really expect? How are they supposed to master basic academic skills if their spirits have been crushed?

Here’s the good news. In my years of school shopping, and in the research of Black education specialists such as Jawanza Kunjufu and Amos Wilson, I have found that there are some educational approaches that consistently provide a safer, more enriching, and more affirmative environment for Black children. The Montessori method, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori and introduced to the U.S. in the early 20th century, is one such approach.

The key feature of Montessori schooling is that children decide (for the most part) what they want to do each day. Led by their own interests and skill levels, children in a Montessori classroom move around freely and work independently or with others on tasks of their own

choosing. The classroom is intentionally stocked with materials tailored to the developmental needs of children, including the need to learn through different senses (sight, touch/texture, movement, etc.). The teacher in a Montessori classroom is less like a boss and more like a caring guide who works with each child individually, demonstrating various activities and then giving them space to try it on their own. The idea is that over time, students learn to master even the toughest tasks and concepts, and they feel an intense sense of pride and accomplishment because they did it by themselves, without pressure or pushing.

I think that this aspect of the Montessori method is good for all kids. Do you remember the feeling of having your creativity or motivation crushed by being told exactly what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and why? The truth is that when presented with a new challenge and then given space, children actually accomplish a lot! They are born with a natural desire to learn. It is that spirit of curiosity, sense of wonder, and excitement to explore that Montessori helps to keep alive in a child. But that’s not the only reason that I think Black parents need to consider Montessori.

Fostering a love of learning is great. But more importantly, I think that Montessori students excel at learning to love. It begins with Montessori’s acknowledgement that all children are precious because childhood is a precious time. In many school systems, Black children are treated like miniature adults (at best) or miniature criminals (at worst), and are subjected to stressful situations that no kids are equipped to handle – expectations to be still and silent for long periods, competitive and high-stakes testing, and punitive classroom discipline. It’s easy to get the sense that rather than being prepared for college or careers, our children are being prepared to fail. Couple this with the aforementioned bias against Black children that seems to run rampant within the U.S. school system, and you end up with children who feel burned out and bitter about school by the time they hit 3rd grade.

In my experience, Montessori does a better job of protecting the space that is childhood – and all the joy of discovery and learning that should come along with that. Without the requirement that students “sit down and shut up,” behavioral issues in Montessori classrooms tend to be non-existent (or at least, the Montessori method doesn’t harp on them; children are gently redirected rather than shamed in front of the class). Montessori students don’t learn for the sake of tests; they demonstrate what they’ve learned by sharing with their teacher or classmates how they solve real-world problems using the skills they’ve gained through reading, math, or science activities. And by allowing children a choice of what to focus on throughout the day, Montessori teachers demonstrate that they honor and trust children’s natural intelligence. The individualized, careful attention they provide indicates to children that they are each seen, heard, and valued for who they are, and who they might become. Now that’s love (and good education).

As a parent, I’ve come to realize that many schools offer high-quality academics. Montessori is no different. Students in Montessori schools gain exposure to advanced concepts and the materials to work with these concepts hands-on. Across the nation, Montessori schools emphasize early literacy development, an especially important indicator of life success for young Black boys and men. Montessori students are provided with the opportunity to be

successful every day, and the chance to develop a sense of competence and self-worth based on completing tasks at their own pace.

But I have also learned that the important questions to ask when school shopping are often not about academics at all. I now ask, ‘Will my children be treated kindly? Will they be listened to? Protected from bias and bullying? Will they feel safe? Will this precious time in their lives be honored as a space for growth, development, awe, and excitement? Will they get to see people like them included in the curriculum? Will they be seen as valuable even if they don’t always ‘measure up’ to other kids on a task? Will they get extra support if they need it? Will the school include me in major decisions? Will the school leaders help to make sure that my children reach their fullest potential? Will the teacher care about my children almost as much as I do?’

Consistently, it’s been the Montessori schools that have answered with a loud, resounding ‘Yes!’ That is why my children ended up in Montessori schools, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision. If you’re a parent like me, shopping for schools with the same questions in mind, I’d urge you to consider Montessori education as a viable option for your precious little ones. Today more than ever, getting it right for our children is priceless.

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LIVE from the NMA Convention Raheem DeVaughn Says The Time Is Now: Let’s End HIV in Our Communities #2

Set against the backdrop of the NMA conference, Executive Officers from the National Medical Association, Grammy Award Winning Artist and Advocate Raheem DeVaughn, and Gilead Sciences experts, are holding today an important conversation on HIV prevention and health equity. Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event […]

Published

2 weeks ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event is designed to uplift voices, explore barriers to access, and increase awareness and key updates about PrEP, a proven prevention method that remains underutilized among Black women. This timely gathering will feature voices from across health, media, and advocacy as we break stigma and center equity in HIV prevention.

Additional stats and information to know:

● Black women continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, with Black women representing more than 50% of new HIV diagnoses among women in the U.S. in 2022, despite comprising just 13% of women in the U.S.

● Women made up only 8% of PrEP users despite representing 19% of all new HIV diagnoses in 2022.

● Gilead Sciences is increasing awareness and addressing stigma by encouraging regular HIV testing and having judgment-free conversations with your healthcare provider about prevention options, including oral PrEP and long-acting injectable PrEP options.