1900 - 1920 Bahamian Immigrants

Between 1900 and 1920, it is estimated that between 10,000 and 12,000 Bahamians, about twenty percent of the islands' population, migrated to southern Florida. This influx of people had a significant impact on southeastern Florida, considering that in 1900 its total population was about 5,000 people, and by 1910 had increased only to 17,000. Even with a surge in population during the next decade, it still would mean that in the first decades of the twentieth century approximate 15 to 18 percent of the local population was born in the Bahamas.

Esther Rolle

Perhaps one of Pompano’s most famous residents, Esther Rolle, was born in Pompano November 8, 1920 and was one of 18 children. She and her sisters starred on stage, screen and television. Esther graduated from Spelman College in 1942. Best known as “Florida Evans” in the series “Maude” and its spin-off series Good Times, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. In 1979 Esther received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for the “Summer of My German Soldier.” In 1981, the City Commission renamed NW Third Avenue as “Esther Rolle Avenue.” Esther died November 17, 1998 and is buried in Westview Cemetery.

Courtesy of the Pompano Beach Historical Society. All rights reserved.

The following information was provided by the Pompano Beach Diamond Jubilee Booklet, Author: Marlyn Kemper; photos by Frank Trenery; 1983

Esther Rolle was born in a "section house" near the railroad in old Pompano. If you look in the reference books on famous people you'll see that event occurred several years ago. She was the middle child of 18 children. As a child growing up in Pompano Beach she was as poor as a church mouse but she never knew it ‘till years later. Esther Rolle and her brothers and sisters were blessed with good parents that saw to it they were loved and secure. With a built-in group of playmates and friends at home, she was never alone or lonely. Esther's family were farmers. Her father scratched out a living working a few acres as a truck farmer. Her father had a truck, her uncle a boat; so between the two men they always managed to have fish and vegetables with chickens grown on the farm. By the time Esther was six, she was considered grown enough to start pulling her own weight. She used to go along at planting time She used to go along at planting time dropping seedlings in the rows. In Pompano, at this time, people had to make due so Esther proudly accepted her older sister's dresses as she grew into them.

Esther’s older sister, Estelle Evans went on before her younger sister to New York and became an actress. You may remember her in such films as "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Learning Tree. This sister was one of the older half of the family who started the family "acting company" called The Family Circle. It began strictly for family entertainment but soon spread to church and other groups in the neighborhood. The sister Esther looked up to for clothes and parts in the family plays was Estelle. Perhaps, "The Family Circle" was Esther's subconscious introduction to things dramatic. Or, possibly, she inherited her flair for acting.

She remembers her father as a great story teller and to whom everything was a dramatic event. "If one of us left the lights burning,” she said, "Pappa would put on his sorrowful face and say, 'Child, take Mr. Edison's hand out of my pocket!” The schools for black children in Pompano only went to the sixth grade but Esther's parents felt that their children should have more education. They sent their oldest children on to Miami. Then, as each child reached the seventh grade they would move on to Miami and stay with the older ones. That way, they all went through high school and seven of the 18 went further and attended college.

Esther was one of those seven. She grew up with a desire to be a writer but her parents told her that it was impossible for black female writers so they advised her to consider other things - teaching school, being a librarian, being a nurse; To please her parents, she got her degree in education. At Spelman College she saw a dance recital by the noted dancer Pearl Primus, who inspired Esther to go into dance. She began her professional career with an African cultural dance group, then with a calypso group. From there, it was only a step to acting, and she became one of the founding members of New York's famed Negro Ensemble Theater. She went on to many roles on and off Broadway, then into television and movies, and, finally into the lead of her own TV series, "Good Times".

In 1981 Esther's hometown decided to honor this nationally acclaimed star of television and stage. Following a request from the Northwest Federated Women's Club and the Sigma Gamma Rho Society, the City Commission voted unanimously to rename N.W. Third Avenue in Miss Rolle's honor, She grew up at 621 N.W. Third Avenue in a house now occupied by her nephew and niece, Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth Rolle. On March 16, 1981, Miss Rolle flew in from Chicago where she had been rehearsing for a play into a whirlwind of activities. For the briefest moment that day, the Emmy award-winning actress who put her hometown on the map was stymied by the crowds surrounding her. "I don't know how we're going to handle this; she told Pompano Beach Mayor Emma Lou Olson as she looked around at the joyous crush of fans, relatives and others who showed up for a glimpse of her. But the Mayor was an old hand at ceremonies and following a speech of welcome, cut the ribbon and officially named the street Esther Rolle Avenue!