Jackie Robinson mural defaced at Overtown park where Negro Leagues once played

The rain drizzled down as Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant peeled back the plastic bag covering a mural of Jackie Robinson that had been defaced with a swastika and racist slurs at the historic Dorsey Park in Overtown, hallowed grounds where teams from the Negro Leagues once played ball.

The defacement — the swastika and the word “N------s” spray-painted onto the mural adorning the park walls — was reported to the Miami Police on Monday afternoon in what the community and police are calling a hate crime. The park is located at Northwest 17th Street and Northwest First Avenue.

Along with Robinson, a Minnie Miñoso mural was also vandalized. Miñoso, a Black Cuban baseball player, played in the Negro Leagues before playing with the Chicago White Sox. His portrait had a swastika spray-painted on it.

“We need the community to uncover the hurt and the hatred that is existing,” Cribbs Lorrant, director of Miami’s Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum, said at a Tuesday morning press conference.

The murals’ defacing galvanized the Overtown community, with members of the Overtown Business Association, the museum and others calling for a heightened police presence around the park, once home to the Negro Leagues’ Ethiopian Clowns.

“We’re going to increase police patrols,” Miami Police Commander A. Cooper told the small crowd inside Dorsey Memorial Library. “We’re going to make sure we also partner with some of our specialized units to bring more presence, more enforcement in the key hot spots in Overtown.”

The murals, which have been on display since 2011, were created as a joint project between artist Kyle Holbrook, who founded the MLK Mural Project to empower youth through art and education, and URGENT Inc., a youth development organization based in Overtown.

“This was an act of hate, but it will not define us,” Holbrook said in a statement. “This mural was born from a community’s pride, history, and power. We will restore it—stronger, bolder, and with even more purpose. Black history is American history. And no spray paint can erase that truth.”

This is the first time the murals have been defaced, said Saliha Nelson, founder and CEO of URGENT. However, the Andre Dawson mural was vandalized with a graffiti tag in 2023, according to Holbrook, whose team restored it.

Nelson’s brother Kadir Nelson painted some of the murals, including those of Satchel Paige, James “Biz” Mackey and Josh Gibson — all stars of the Negro Leagues, which began in 1920 to counter Major League Baseball excluding Blacks from playing professional ball.

Robinson played for the Negro Leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs in 1945, before signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, becoming Major League Baseball’s first Black ballplayer.

Robinson, Paige, Mackey and Gibson have all been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

“I was really floored and appalled that someone would have the audacity to come and deface in such a derogatory, mean-spirited way,” Saliha Nelson told the Miami Herald.

‘Call for action’

For Metris Batts, executive director of the Overtown Business Association, the vandalism “hurts because all we have left in Overtown is our history.”

Dorsey Park, named after Dana Albert Dorsey, Miami’s first Black millionaire, holds a deep legacy. Batts detailed how the park and its murals serve not just as artistic tributes, but as vital educational tools and points of pride.

Batts said she participated in a May 1 effort to document Dorsey Park as a historical landmark.

‘When someone comes in, defames it, it’s a slap in the face, because we already say the racial discrimination is real in America, and this is just an example of how real it is,” Batts said.

Daniella Pierre, president of the NAACP’s Miami-Dade branch, said Tuesday’s press conference and community meeting was a “call for action.”

Pierre, whose grandfather owned a grocery store in Overtown known as Marshall’s Grocery, said the historically Black neighborhood has a “rich history and legacy that must be protected.”

“When other communities have such instances, there’s a heightened awareness of protection and safety. That’s what we’re calling for as well,” Pierre said. “The Black community is no stranger to such acts of cowardice, but this particular defacing of a mural is not one that we have actually seen in many years.”

Cecilia Stewart, 67, has organized crime watch efforts as chair of the Overtown Community Oversight Board in addition to preserving local history through her calendars of Overtown’s historical sites.

The Overtown native returned from Washington D.C. in 2005 to care for her ailing father, Caesar Stewart, a longshoreman of 47 years.

“I stand for unity in our community. I stand for historic preservation,” Stewart said. “And I’ll be here. I’ll pass down the home and the legacy that my father left here to future generations in my family.”

The vandalism of the murals, located just a block from Stewart’s home, hit especially hard when she learned it was discovered by a 7-year-old boy.

“I felt the pain of all people who are being tormented by hatred, even outside of our country, the different people in other nations all over the world,” Stewart said. “And so that helped bring it home even closer. My main thing is the pain of the children. The children are suffering.”

This story was updated to reflect how artist Kyle Holbrook and his MLK Mural Project were involved in creating the murals.

This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 6:07 PM.