In the early 1900s, a time when blacks were not allowed to drive automobiles in Miami, Willie B Watkins, a black man, drove his automobile down from Boston, Massachusetts. His purpose was to operate a taxi service at the Royal Palm Hotel (site where the DuPont Plaza Hotel now stands, 300 Biscayne Boulevard Way). However, after working for several days, local white residents threatened his life if he continued driving his automobile. He soon left Miami and returned to Boston.

Other members of the Watkins family remained in Miami at the family’s homestead on N.W. 9^th Street and Second Avenue.

It was not until 1918 that the City of Miami rescinded the law that prohibited black men and women from driving automobiles in the city. The change in the law came after several blacks tested commercial restrictions on black businesses by starting chauffeur services catering to white customers in 1917.

White chauffeurs retaliated by chasing the black drivers through the streets as white officers just stood by watching. Later, one black chauffeur was assaulted by several white chauffeurs. The black chauffeur, Fred Andrews, found one of his assailants and stabbed him. Andrews was subsequently arrested, tried and convicted for the stabbing, but nothing was done about his assailants.

Soon after Andrew’s conviction, rumors of a black uprising and that whites were ready to shoot up the black neighborhoods spread throughout the city. A group of whites dynamited the Odd Fellows Hall, then the largest building in Overtown, on the night of July 15, 1917.

Several black clergymen were able to quell tempers in the black community after many residents came rushing into the streets with guns and other weapons. The police responded by offering rewards for the capture of the dynamiters, but no one was ever arrested. Later an agreement was made with the police chief, white civic leaders and the Colored Board of Trade to give blacks a monopoly on the operation of buses and automobiles for hire in black areas.