Miami's Black Wallstreet and the Harlem of the South

Overtown is a neighborhood in Miami, Florida, just northwest of the downtown area. Originally called Colored Town during the Jim Crow era of the late 19th through the mid-20th century, the area was once the preeminent and is the historic center for commerce in the black community in Miami and South Florida. In Overtown, Black officers patrol the Black neighborhood.

Overtown could boast about NW Second Avenue, known as Miami\'s Little Broadway. Artist sang doo-wop on the corner and jazz and blues flowed out of such clubs as the Knightbeat, the Mary Elizabeth Lounge and the Harlem Square. Jazz saxophonist, Pee Wee Ellis, a resident of Overtown in the early 1960s before becoming musical director for James Brown said ''It was live and vital. It was vigorous.'' Soul singers Sam and Dave started in Overtown; a young Lena Horne lived here; Sam Cooke and James Brown made Overtown a second home; Flip Wilson practiced his comedy here and Ray Charles made his first records in Overtown.

Black entertainers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole, performed at Miami Beach Hotels but could not stay at them would spend the bight at hotels in Overtown.