Jazz to Junkanoo

About this event

Jazz to Junkanoo explores the enduring relationship between The Bahamas and Miami through music, migration, cultural memory, and community. For more than a century, Bahamian settlers helped shape the foundations of Miami. They built homes, churches, schools, businesses, and civic institutions while bringing with them traditions of craftsmanship, faith, music, food, celebration, and community life that remain deeply embedded in the identity of South Florida.

Little Bahamas in Coconut Grove stands as one of the most important physical and cultural expressions of that history. Yet much of that history has become increasingly threatened by redevelopment, lot splitting, cultural displacement, the loss of original Bahamian clapboard homes and fruiting tree landscapes, and the gradual erosion of the living cultural memory that has defined Little Bahamas for generations.

This program is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, Dorothea Green Lecture Series, the Green Family Foundation, The Ten North Group, the Kimberly Green Latin America and Caribbean Center and Humanities Edge. We thank Albert Gomez for inspiring this program.