The Umoja Village shantytown was founded on October 23, 2006, in the Liberty City section of

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, Florida, in response to

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

and a lack of low-income housing in Miami. The name '' Umoja'' is Swahili for "unity", hence " Unity Village". After months of planning, a group calling itself

Take Back the Land Take Back the Land is an American organization based in Miami, Florida, devoted to blocking evictions, and rehousing homeless people in foreclosure, foreclosed houses. Take Back the Land was formed in October 2006 to build the Umoja Village sha ...

seized control of a vacant lot on the corner of 62nd St. and NW 17th Ave. The lot had been vacant for about eight years after low-income housing there was demolished by the City of Miami. Take Back the Land erected several tents and then built wood-frame shanties in order to provide housing for otherwise homeless people in the area. Police, City of Miami and

Miami-Dade County Miami-Dade County () is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most-populous coun ...

officials were unable to evict the residents or organizers due to the landmark 1996 Pottinger Settlement. After years of arresting

homeless people Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...

, the city of Miami was sued by the Miami

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. ...

; they eventually settled. In the settlement, the city agreed that homeless people could not be arrested if they met the following criteria: #The individual is homeless; #the individual is situated on

public land In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land (Commonwealth realms). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countries. ...

; #there are no beds available at homeless shelters in the city; and #the individual is engaged in "life sustaining conduct," such as eating, sleeping, bathing, "responding to calls of nature," congregating and building "temporary structures" to protect oneself from the elements. Take Back the Land used the legal settlement to build a shantytown in Miami. By the end of December, the Village housed approximately 50 otherwise homeless people, and made the news in ''

The Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe countie ...

'', the ''

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'', the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'',

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and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', as well as a number of documentaries and blogs. Residents ran the Village, voting to build, distribute donations, move in new residents and evict others. Umoja Village enjoyed broad support in the community, and, therefore, was able to successfully repel numerous attempts by government officials to evict them.

Land struggle

organizer Max Rameau, of the Center for Pan-African Development, argued that the Umoja Village was not just about gentrification, but was a full "land struggle," in the mold of

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

's MST (the

Landless Workers' Movement The Landless Workers' Movement (, MST) is a social movement in Brazil aimed at land reform. Inspired by Marxism, it is the largest such movement in Latin America, with an estimated informal membership of 1.5 million across 23 of Brazil's 26 sta ...

) and similar movements in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. As an advocate of

Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is a nationalist movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atla ...

, Rameau asserted

black people Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ...

should control the land in the black community, as manifested by Umoja Village. The village itself was built with the help of local

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

and Latino

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

s, operating under the black political leadership of Take Back the Land.

The fire

On April 23, 2007, Umoja Village celebrated six months since its founding by announcing several building campaigns, including demanding legal rights to the land from the City of Miami, and other plans to acquire land and build low-income housing. However on the day the first new construction was to start, Umoja Village burned to the ground. There were no casualties or injuries. Miami police arrested 11 residents and

activists Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

for attempting to remain on the land, and the City erected a barbed wire fence around the property that same day. To avoid protests, the City offered Take Back the Land the property, in order to build low-income housing before reneging on the offer under pressure from local power brokers and lobbyists. On October 23, 2007, Take Back the Land announced it had identified vacant public and private

foreclosed Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mort ...

homes and had moved families into some of those homes, in a move it calls "liberating" housing. As of February 2008, Take Back the Land had a waiting list of 14 families waiting to move into one of those homes. In February 2008, Max Rameau released a book detailing the experience, entitled ''Take Back the Land: Land, Gentrification and the Umoja Village Shantytown''.

References

External links

* * {{Miami Neighborhoods History of Miami Intentional communities in the United States Neighborhoods in Miami Shanty towns in the United States 2006 establishments in Florida 2007 disestablishments in Florida Populated places established in 2006 Populated places disestablished in 2007 Squats in the United States Housing in Florida