Yanela Gordon McLeod

Yanela Gordon McLeod is adjunct professor of history and director of Communications and Alumni Affairs for the College of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities at Florida A&M University. In The Miami Times and the Fight for Equality: Race, Sport, and the Black Press, 1948-1958 (Lexington Books) author Yanela Gordon McLeod places the newspaper into the historical narrative of the Civil Rights Movement in Florida by highlighting its role in Rice v Arnold. This 1949 lawsuit, filed by black recreational golfers in Miami, opposed segregation on the city’s public golf course. The Miami Times was founded in 1923 by Bahamian-born H.E.S. Reeves who ran the newspaper with his son Garth C. Reeves Sr. Its support of the Rice v Arnold legal challenge is but one example of how, financially and editorially, the paper supported efforts to desegregate Miami schools, beaches, residential communities, public transportation systems and sports complexes. Historian Dorothy Jenkins Fields, founder of the Black Archives, History & Research Foundation of South Florida, praised The Miami Times and the Fight for Equality as “ An excellent book for students and others interested in American history and the desegregation of the Miami Springs Golf Course case, this-well documented book serves as a timely reminder of a bygone era.”