A Brightly Colored Tinderbox

By Jacob V. Lamar

Behind a facade of glitzy beach-front hotels, Miami is a seething melting pot of impoverished blacks and immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. Last week, for the fourth time in a decade, the melting pot boiled over. On the night of the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and as the city was preparing to play host to the Super Bowl, a Colombian-born policeman $ shot and killed a black motorcyclist speeding through the streets of Overtown, a ghetto just northwest of downtown. A passenger riding on the rear of the motorcycle was fatally injured in the resulting crash. The incident triggered two nights of arson, looting and random shootings that spread from Overtown to the nearby black ghetto Liberty City.

By the time the rioting subsided, one looter had been killed, 22 people had been wounded, and property damage was estimated at $1 million. Police arrested 385, mostly for looting. The toll was modest, compared with the 18 killed, 400 wounded and $100 million in devastation wrought by the Miami riots of 1980. But like the '80 melee and conflagrations in '82 and '84, last week's upheaval brought into sharp focus the tensions that have grown for nearly three decades between native-born blacks and new arrivals from Cuba, Haiti and now Nicaragua.

The hostilities date back to 1965, the beginning of a six-year airlift that brought 260,000 refugees from Fidel Castro's Cuba to Miami. Just as the civil rights movement was beginning to open doors for advancement, blacks found themselves competing with the Cubans for jobs, housing and other opportunities. Since then, the number of Hispanics has more than tripled, to 825,000; they now outnumber blacks by 450,000. Cubans have become the dominant economic and political force in Miami. The city's first Cuban-born mayor, Xavier Suarez, 39, was elected in 1985.

Blacks, by contrast, have made few economic or political strides. Since 1980, black unemployment in Dade County has risen to 10.4%, and the jobless rate for Hispanics has dropped to 5.8%. While Cubans have expanded their ownership of small businesses, Miami has one of the smallest black professional classes of any city its size. In recent years 70,000 hardworking Haitian immigrants have also begun to carve out a niche for themselves. Says Marvin Dunn, a black psychologist who co-authored a study of the 1980 riots: "A larger and larger segment of the black community is falling farther and farther behind the rest of us in income and in the quality of life."

Miami is now in the grip of a new surge of immigration, this time from Nicaragua. Fleeing economic misery and political persecution in that embattled Central American country, as many as 200 refugees a day are hitting town. By the end of this year, an estimated 100,000 more Nicaraguans will seek refuge in Miami. The city has not experienced such an overwhelming influx since the Mariel boatlift deposited 125,000 Cuban refugees in 1980.

Many blacks charge that the city goes out of its way to provide housing, jobs and social services for the Hispanic immigrants, while ignoring the needs of the black citizenry. "The Nicaraguans get food, they get clothing," says Vanessa Haynes, 34, a black data-entry officer at the University of Miami. "What do our people get? Nothing!"

To be sure, the newest Nicaraguan refugees hardly have it easy. Impoverished, frightened and confused, many of them were herded into a grimy makeshift shelter at Bobby Maduro Miami Stadium. There, cots were crammed end to end, and families crowded around long tables eating rice and beans, Big Macs and other offerings from local restaurants. Still, many agree with Manuel Ortega, 33, a carpenter from Managua who says he lost his job because of his anti-Sandinista politics, that "anything is better than home." At week's end most of the refugees had been moved to apartments and a church shelter.

Working in the refugees' favor is a formidable Hispanic power structure in Miami that has aggressively reached out to new arrivals, trying to integrate them into the city. Miami's blacks, meanwhile, feel that the Hispanic powers have conspired to keep them out of the economic mainstream.

Their anger has combined with an epidemic of drug use to turn Liberty City and Overtown, where many buildings are painted gaudy shades of yellow, orange and green, into brightly colored tinderboxes. The rage is compounded by deep- seated animosity toward the police, 43% of whom are Hispanic. Like last week's violence, all of Miami's previous riots ignited after white or Hispanic officers shot black suspects. Twice last year, Miami police on drug raids burst into the homes of innocent black people. Black citizens accuse Hispanic officers of waging a vendetta against black youths.

Last week's shooting of Clement Lloyd reinforced that suspicion. Lloyd, 23, and Allan Blanchard, 24, were tearing through the streets of Overtown on Lloyd's motorcycle. Officer William Lozano spotted the speeding vehicle. Lozano drew his revolver and fired -- an apparent violation of the police department policy that prohibits the use of deadly force against traffic violators. According to Lozano's attorney, Lloyd and Blanchard were driving directly toward the policeman, and Lozano acted in self-defense.

Mayor Suarez helped establish a committee of five black Overtown residents % and five members of the police force to examine the riot. He has also suggested psychological testing of officers to weed out violence-prone bigots. Lozano, meanwhile, has been relieved of duty, with pay, as police, the state attorney's office and the FBI investigate the shooting.

Speedy action by Suarez and the firmness of police cooled Miami's immediate crisis. But more fundamental steps are necessary to help the city cope with the sudden inundation by Nicaraguan refugees while providing its alienated black citizenry with a greater stake in economic opportunity and political power. Unless action is taken soon, it may be only a matter of time before Miami's melting pot blows its lid again.

With reporting by Don Winbush and Richard Woodbury/Miami