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Environment
Voices of Lake Okeechobee
Meet a farmer, an activist, an environmentalist, the fish finders, the immigrants and the berm buster, the people who are at odds.
Helping Belle Glade Rebound
 Pep talk: “Some of us have to try to bring the community back,” says Linda Johnson. [Photo: Jeffrey Camp] |
“It’s a major sacrifice to stay, but some of us have to try to bring the community back,” says Linda Johnson. Born in Belle Glade, now living in South Bay, Johnson is president of the Everglades area NAACP and directs the NAACP area from Key West to Palm Beach. She’s also trying to build a marketing business. It’s tough. The 5th Street of the Belle Glade of her youth, lined with black dentist and doctor offices and grocers, is gone.
| » If you look at the individuals who were born there, reside there, you would be shocked. A lot of them have degrees." — Linda Johnson President, Everglades area NAACP |
“It was a special kind of community,” she remembers. Community life, not just worship, ran through eight or so churches. But as jobs were lost, so were community-minded people who kept on top of government officials to maintain infrastructure, she says. The community began to decline. Bright young people left for college and didn’t return. The area became more diverse by country of origin. Churches have proliferated, but many are small, and unity isn’t as strong, she says.
Pride remains. Everglades area residents are proud of the wealth of NFL players it has produced and the sense that the community is more than the migrant farmworkers for which it’s known.
“If you look at the individuals who were born there, reside there, you would be shocked. A lot of them have degrees,” Johnson says.
She says the area is rebounding. Leaders are enhancing infrastructure. Her daughter plans to return after completing her education.
