Although Miami was not really considered a major center of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, it did not escape the change that occurred. Miami was a major city in the southern state of Florida, and had always had a substantial African-American and black Caribbean population.

In the 1970s, Miami was a news leader, resulting from response to a Dade County (now Miami-Dade) ordinance protecting individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. Opposition to this ordinance was led by Florida orange juice spokeswoman, Anita Bryant.

In December 1979, police officers pursued motorcyclist Arthur McDuffie in a high-speed chase after McDuffie made a provocative gesture towards a police officer. The officers claimed that the chase ended when McDuffie crashed his motorcycle and died. The coroner's report concluded otherwise. One of the officers testified that McDuffie fell off of his bike on an Interstate 95 on-ramp. When the police reached him he was injured but okay. The officers removed his helmet, beat him to death with their batons, put his helmet back on, and called an ambulance claiming there had been a motorcycle accident. Eula McDuffie, the victim's mother, said to the Miami Herald a few days later, "They beat my son like a dog. They beat him just because he was riding a motorcycle and because he was black." An all-white jury acquitted the officers after a brief deliberation.

After learning of the verdict of the McDuffie case, one of the worst riots in the history of the United States, the infamous Liberty City Riots, broke out. By the time the rioting ceased three days later, over 850 people had been arrested, and at least eight white people and ten African Americans had died. Property damage was estimated at around one hundred million dollars. One more person, a sixty-five year old woman named Mildred Penton, died from a coma five weeks after being struck in the head with a brick.

In March 1980, the first black Dade County schools superintendent, Dr. Johnny L. Jones, had been convicted on grand theft charges linked to gold-plated plumbing. His conviction was overturned because his jury had been all-white, and on July 3, 1986, the state attorney Janet Reno announced that Jones would not be retried for that case. However, in a separate case, he was convicted on misdemeanor charges of soliciting perjury and witness tampering, and received a two-year jail sentence. Many believed Jones was targeted because he was an African American man with power

Miami Beach