He was immediately recognized at any political gathering: 5-foot-7-inches, with a 250 pound frame and his trademark, striped suspenders. Charles Rudolph Hadley of Miami, known as “Uncle Charlie” to generations of Miamians, was a powerful political leader in Florida for more than three decades. During those years, to court the black vote was to court “Uncle Charlie.” He delivered it in the City of Miami, Dade County, state and national elections, registering and influencing thousands of voters.

Operations Big Vote, which Mr. Hadley started in the late 1950s in Miami, was the first and most formidable black registration and vote-gathering apparatus in Dade County. For more than 25 years, Mr. Hadley led voter registration drives, door-to-door campaigns and get-out-the-vote efforts in Dade County’s black community.

Born January 8, 1913 in rural Cairo, Georgia, he was one of 11 children. His father, Haywood, a farmer, and his mother, Victoria, wanted all of their children to get a good education. For this reason, they sent some of their children, including Charles, to live with relatives so they could attend school. An uncle who was a dentist and farmer in Tallahassee agreed to help young Charles, who nevertheless had to drop out of school for long periods of time in order to help support himself. He didn’t finish high school until 1936, when he was 23 years old.

Mr. Hadley graduated from FAMU in 1940 and a year later married college classmate, Ella Douglas. They moved to Miami in 1943 when he began to work with the Dade Health Department, from which he retired in 1962.

Mr. Hadley was elected the unofficial mayor of black Miami in 1959, through a postcard poll and he took that responsibility seriously. Housing and health care issues remained close to his heart until his death in 1985 at the age of 72.

The Liberty City Public Library, a park, the Hadley Gardens Apartment Complex, and Charles Hadley Elementary School were named in his honor.