Bea L. Hines

1 month ago | miamiherald.com | Bea L. Hines

Last Saturday, I sat with Dr. Marvin Dunn and Shanreka Perry under the great big oak tree in front of Florida International University’s library. It was a beautiful day — cool breezes chasing away the heat, and leaves rustling softly under drifting clouds. It was on such a day 45 years ago — May 17, 1980 — that Miami erupted in violence when word reached our city that an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four white Metro Dade police officers in the death of Black insurance agent Arthur McDuffie.

1 month ago | miamiherald.com | Bea L. Hines

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled with my godchildren Troy and Cecily Robinson Duffie to Marshall, Texas, for the graduation ceremony of Trinity, their fifth and last child to graduate college. The ceremony took place on the lawn of the historic Wiley University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) established in 1873 — just 10 years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

1 month ago | miamiherald.com | Bea L. Hines

Mother’s Day is a holiday that can conjure up a kaleidoscope of colorful and beautiful memories, or it can bring back memories of almost unbearable sadness. Had she lived, my mom would be 106. She died in 2002, just slept away as her only two children — myself and my brother Adam — and her daughter-in-law Val, sat by her bedside. I was honored to have been her caregiver for nearly seven years before she died. Although this sounds like the beginning of a sad story, it is not.

1 month ago | miamiherald.com | Bea L. Hines

Somebody please explain to me why a mother of a nursing baby, whose husband is a U.S. citizen, was snatched from her family and sent back to Cuba. Or why a mother and her 4-year-old son with Stage 4 metastatic cancer — a U.S. citizen — were sent to Honduras, where the child most likely won’t get the treatment that could possibly save his life.

2 months ago | miamiherald.com | Bea L. Hines

I am living at a time when I am attending more and more funerals of friends. Just recently, two longtime friends died only days apart. Ivey Kearson died April 8, and Marcia Johnson Martin Saunders died a few days later, on April 21. A litany service for Ivey was held last Monday, followed by a Celebration of Life on Tuesday at The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in Liberty City, where he was a dedicated member. There was no written obituary in Ivey’s funeral program.