During his long tenure as a pastor of the historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church, located at 301 N.W. Ninth Avenue in Overtown, Rev. Edward T. Graham won attention and respect as a leading light in the struggle for equal rights and opportunities for Miami’s black citizens. He played key roles in numerous campaigns for change in the Miami area, including the integration of Miami’s lunch counters, golf courses, buses, the police department, Dade County beaches, and Miami Beach hotels; founding Miami’s chapter of the Urban League, bringing Florida Memorial College to Miami and organizing Franklin savings and Loan Association. A Miami Herald editor once referred to him as “the original civil rights spokesman in this area”.

A native of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Rev. Graham graduated from Benedict College in 1928 before he went to New York and earned a master’s degree in sociology from Columbia University in 1929. He held several clerical and professional level jobs in New York during the 1930s, before he came to Miami in 1943 as executive director of the United Service Organization (USO). Later, he founded the Negro service Council, a precursor of the Urban League of which he eventually served as executive director, from 1945 to 1948. He became a licensed preacher at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and was ordained in 1947. In 1948, when Rev. Graham succeeded to the pulpit, Mt. Zion had 416 members. By the time he retired as pastor, in October, 1976, the membership had swelled to just over 1,400, attesting to his years of dynamic leadership.

Rev. Graham was noted for utilizing his position to further the cause of blacks by forming networks with white ministers and congregations who would eventually aid local efforts to desegregate public accommodations and enlarge economic and educational opportunities for Miami’s black citizens. For this, he was roundly praised by some as a visionary progressive and vilified by others who labeled him a Communist or an “Uncle Tom”.

After taking leadership roles in many campaigns to open various facilities and public institutions to blacks in Miami, Rev. Graham took on different challenges. “I decided the real answer to the Negro’s situation lies in getting him into the mainstream of American economic life,” he once told a reporter. So he helped to organize the Franklin Savings and Loan Association, overcoming fierce opposition from federal officials who saw no need for a black-oriented financial institution. When he and his colleagues recognized that there were not enough blacks to staff the operation, Rev. Graham began to lobby for the relocation to Miami of Florida Memorial College, a Baptist-related, historically black college then situated in St. Augustine. He once served the college as chairman of the board of trustees and received an honorary doctorate from the institution in 1965.

Rev. Graham also held public office, serving terms on the city commission and county commission. During his service to the city, he at one time was Vice Mayor of the commission.

Before his death in March 1987, Rev. Graham held membership in numerous civic and service organizations, ranging from the executive committee of the National Council of Churches to the citizen’s advisory board for the public television channel, WPBT.

Sources:    “He Laid a Foundation for Dignity of Men,” by Adon Taft, The Miami Herald, April 23, 1967; “Rev. Graham: Giant Among Us,” by Larry King, The Miami Herald, June 24, 1968; Statement of Education and Experiences for Edward T. Graham (June 13, 1972).