The early years of Fort Lauderdale reflect a time when daily life looked very different for many of its residents. For Black citizens, access to education, housing, recreation and public services often came with limits that shaped entire generations.
Healthcare revealed some of the starkest gaps. In one widely remembered incident, injured Black laborers involved in a bus accident were transported to Broward General Hospital, only to be left untreated on the surrounding grounds. That moment became a turning point.
Provident Hospital was born from that crisis. Led by Dr. Von D. Mizell and Dr. James Sistrunk, with support from local business owners, it became more than a facility—it was a statement of resilience when options were scarce.
Challenges also existed in life’s final chapter. Funeral customs others took for granted were often unavailable. Journalist and author Deborah Work notes in My Soul Is a Witness that burials were handled quickly and without ceremony.
She tells the story of George Benton, the first Black man to earn a mortuary license in Florida. Benton had worked as a cook on the Florida East Coast Railway. One meal he served in a dining car to the owner of the Broward Hotel earned him a job at the hotel, but he was also a graduate of Florida Baptist College and among the state’s first licensed morticians.
In 1923, Benton opened Benton Funeral Home on Northwest Fifth Avenue in the heart of “Colored Town.” It was the first to offer dignified funeral services for Black residents of Fort Lauderdale.
“Colored Town,” Work explains, was the city’s early Black district, bordered by Broward Boulevard, Sixth Street, Ninth Avenue and the railroad tracks. It was home to Dr. Sistrunk’s clinic, a grocery store, a drugstore, a theater and even an ice factory serving the whole city.
In the early years, Benton faced a difficult task. The Dania cemetery, serving all residents, was reaching capacity. The solution: relocate the Black burials. Benton was asked to oversee the exhumations and move the bodies to a plot across the tracks.
Work’s interviews with Benton, who died in 1986 at age 89, offer a vivid window into that era. “There were only three televisions in the Black community,” he recalled. “They were owned by the Sistrunks, John T. Hill and us, the Bentons.” There were only two private phones…one of which belonged to the Benton family. “Our number was 290.”
Fort Lauderdale, Benton said, was “a friendly place to live,” but segregation persisted in schools and zoning. Still, “There was free movement in business and social circles.”
He didn’t just observe discrimination…he challenged it. Benton helped register young people to vote. Although Black residents could vote in national elections, they were barred from participating in local and county races.
He also prioritized education. When Fort Lauderdale schools refused to offer higher grades to Black students, Benton sent his family to Jacksonville so his children could attend school. His twins later graduated from Bethune-Cookman University.
The family’s legacy continued through his son Louis, who joined and eventually led the funeral home. The Bentons were known for providing dignified funerals even to those who couldn’t afford them. Poverty never meant a lesser goodbye.
At Louis Benton’s memorial, Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Carlton Moore said, “The Benton family has been a pioneer family. There was never an individual denied an opportunity of a burial of the standard that they wanted.”
George Benton was honored as a community pioneer at the 1982 Sistrunk Historical Festival. By then, the funeral home had relocated to Sistrunk Boulevard. Reflecting on his city’s progress, he said: “Sometimes I lie down in bed and think about how far we’ve come. I just feel proud of it myself. I’m glad to live to see it.”
