Enid Pinkney is on a mission to preserve Miami's Black history
MIAMI - More and more streets are being named for Miami's Black leaders. The events are reminders of Miami's rich Black heritage.
In the middle of the festivities, you will most often see Enid Pinkney who is blunt about her purpose, "What drives me to continue my work in historic preservation is that I see so little respect for history."
Pinkney was a Miami-Dade educator for many years. She joined the Dade Heritage Trust, a historic preservation organization, in the mid-1980s while she was assistant principal at South Miami Middle School. In 1998, Pinkney was elected the first Black president of the Trust.
CBS News Miami's Hank Tester caught up with Pinkney at the historic Hampton House. Martin Luther King Jr. stayed there and wrote part of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Mohamad Ali was also a frequent guest. Hampton House was the setting for the movie "One Night in Miami."
"I used to come to the Hampton House in its heyday when it was the most elegant place in the south for Black people," said Pinkney.
It is no surprise that she was the driving force behind preserving Hampton House which was declared a historic landmark in April 2002. Pinkney is a strong voice in explaining the Black community to itself, influential in the restoration of the Lemon City Cemetery, and expanding her influence when deeply involved in the preservation of the Miami Circle, a major indigenous archeological site in downtown Miami.
"I was at a testimonial dinner for her about five years ago and you should have seen the people there who were standing up and thanking her for the way she had put them on the right track," said Miami historian Paul George.
Pinkney spelled out her chosen task, plain and simple.
"I'm emphasizing Black people because there are so many times when Black people are underestimated as to their value and people feel that if it's Black it can't be that important. I think we need to change that concept about themselves and then in addition to that, they have to celebrate who they are and that's a part of my mission," she said.
So what's next for energetic dynamo?
"I'm working on the Curtis Foundation," she said, "Which is a historic preservation organization and we are working with various historic preservation projects to try to get funds to write grants."
Pinkney is preserving history, ensuring that in the future we can celebrate history, and in this case Black history during Black History Month.