REQUESTED BY COMMISSIONER ALBERT C. JONES – BROWARD COUNTY
WHEREAS, the Broward Mizell Family has been one of the most influential families in South Florida for over one hundred years, and these true pioneers have been on the cutting edge in helping to provide quality service in the areas of education, literacy, history, and health to the benefit of Broward County and its African American community; and
WHEREAS, the most intriguing and compelling aspect of the Mizell Family Legacy is the unique role that key individual members of this family played in serving the life stages of those in the community in the 20th Century; and
WHEREAS, in their heyday, it was said the Mizells served the community’s needs from “cradle to grave”: a Mizell would deliver your baby,
make sure that you got good schooling, take pictures of you and your family throughout your whole life, provide medical care when you got sick, help you fight for your equal rights, build your house, bury you when you died, and pray for you as well; and
WHEREAS, Isadore Mizell, Sr., patriarch, farmer, and carpenter, built the first school for “Colored” children before Blacks were even allowed to go to school, and before there was even a Broward County or a Broward County School System, and it was often said that he fed most of the African American population in Dania during the Depression from his vast farmland holdings, whether they had the money to pay for it or not; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Von D. Mizell, one of the first African American surgeons in the state of Florida, co-founded Provident Hospital, the first hospital for “Negroes” in the County before Blacks were allowed to receive medical treatment from other ‘Whites only’ area hospitals and which served the Black community with distinction for nearly 40 years before it was absorbed into the Broward County Health Delivery system; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Mizell also was the founder of the Broward County NAACP, led the organization for over 25 years, and was active in the heart of the civil rights’ struggle which led to the nationally-renowned “Beach Wade-Ins” that desegregated Fort Lauderdale beaches. Dr. Von D. Mizell is considered one of the single most important and influential civic figures in Broward County in the entire 20th Century; and
WHEREAS, Reverend Ivory Mizell opened the first library for “Negroes” in a room at the Dixie Court Projects Administration Office Building,
and then in a separate building in 1948, before there was a Broward County library system; for over 40 years, he was renowned as the “Unofficial Town Chronicler” who documented the lives of individuals and families by taking photographs or filming birthday parties, graduations, proms, weddings, celebrations, and important community organization events; and his legacy has been carried forth by his daughter, Lorraine, with “Ivory’s TakeOut” business on Sistrunk Boulevard; and
WHEREAS, LeRoy Mizell, through Roy Mizell Funeral Home, handled the cessation of life affairs with dignity, class, and professionalism for four
decades, which is still a successful business operation on Sistrunk Boulevard; and
WHEREAS, Ethel Mizell Pappy was a distinguished educator in the public school system for four decades, and obtained a Master’s in Education from Columbia University in 1938, when Florida would not accept “Negroes” in its segregated institutions of higher education, and her daughter, Rosamond Pappy, was the first African American to integrate a school in Broward County history. Ethel is also responsible for having a portion of Dania Beach Boulevard named for her father, Isadore, because of his contribution to the founding and development of Dania, dating back to 1910, and for spearheading the drive to name an original branch of the main library for Dr. Von D. Mizell, on the site of the old Provident Hospital, which is now the location of the Dr. Von D. Mizell Center in Fort Lauderdale; NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT PROCLAIMED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA:
That the Board hereby designates Saturday, July 31, 2010, as “MIZELL FAMILY LEGACY APPRECIATION DAY” in Broward County, Florida, thanks the Mizell family for its continuing leadership in advancing the rights and interests of African Americans in Broward County, for improving the lives of all Broward County residents, and welcomes the 42nd Biennial Mizell Reunion to Broward County.