[4] In May 1945, seven civil rights activists supported by the local NAACP chapter staged a "wade-in" at the whites’ only Baker's Haulover Beach in Dade County Florida.

Five men and two women protested Jim Crow era laws that denied access to recreation based on race.

In a Miami emerging from World War II this meant "colored" people could not share with whites the legendary beaches along and in the waters of Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

[5] The struggle for a "colored-only" beach in Miami, which was part of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, fueled the anger of patriotic black servicemen who fought the racism of Nazi Germany only to return to a segregated America.

On instruction from local government representatives, police refused to cite the protestors, telling Thomas to contact County Commissioner Charles H.

[7] There are several urban myths about the selection of Virginia Key by county officials, each with a kernel of truth – but there was an historic connection of at least several decades’ standing.

A 1918 survey map of the "Abandoned Military Reservation" on Virginia Key located a "Negro Dancing Pavilion" on the island's southeastern shore of the "colored-only" beach.

The original temporary buildings were replaced by permanent construction, a miniature railroad carried beachgoers around the park, and a seaside merry-go-round whirled riders of all ages.

[11] Shuttered for two decades, Virginia Key Beach was eroded by storms, its buildings damaged and vandalized, and park lands invaded by exotic plants and animals.

Beset by declining revenues, some City officials began to speculate over schemes to sell off the development rights on Virginia Key.

The leadership at City Hall appointed an official community-based civil rights task force to provide a public forum for the park's future.

[12] In time, the civil right's task force developed into a trust that was given the charge of re-opening the park as an open green space for a multi-cultural society.

Historic landmarks such as the bathhouse, concession stand, carousel house, train tunnel, and picnic pavilions have all been renovated and opened for public use.

AOML's mission is to conduct basic and applied research in oceanography, tropical meteorology, atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, and acoustics.

Nearby rest rooms and a great view of the curving shoreline make this an ideal place for tailgate parties.

Located on a 16-acre (65,000 m2) campus on Virginia Key in Miami, it is the only tropical applied and basic marine and atmospheric research institute of its kind in the continental United States.