A 1963 photograph of a meeting that led to the creation of the Dade County Community Relations Board. Photo courtesy of Special Collections/Richter Library.

Following a string of bombings of Miami synagogues, Jewish schools, a Catholic church, and an apartment building undergoing transition from white to black occupancy, Seymour Samet of the American Jewish Committee was sent to the city to help smooth the racial and ethnic tensions that persisted there during the 1950s. Samet was able to bring together Miami key religious and educational leaders, who all called for a forum to improve community relations.

The result was the Dade County Community Relations Board (CRB), which was formed in 1963 with Samet as its executive director and then-University of Miami President Henry King Stanford as head of its board of directors. The CRB still exists today, but it was during the 1960s that it faced its most challenging tasks, from promoting school desegregation and eliminating job and housing discrimination to improving police-community relations and mediating ongoing conflicts between blacks and Cubans.

In two key events this week, the University of Miami’s Office of Civic and Community Engagement will examine the history of this important Miami initiative. Raymond Mohl, distinguished professor of history at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and a specialist in modern U.S. urban, ethnic, and social history, will present a lecture on “The Origins and Early History of the Dade County Community Relations Board to 1968” on Wednesday, March 6 at 6 p.m. at the School of Architecture’s Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center, Glasgow Hall, 1215 Dickinson Drive.

Then, on Thursday, March 7 at 10 a.m. in the BankUnited Center’s Hurricane 100 Room, Mohl will be joined by prominent local community leaders—including Rabbi Solomon Schiff, Dorothy Fields, Reverend Walter Richardson, and UM student Tiffany Ford—for the panel discussion “Engaging Diversity: Lesson from the 50-Year History of the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board.”

Both events are free and open to the public and are co-sponsored by the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History, and the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board. To RSVP or for more information, call 305-284-6636 or email [email protected] [email protected].