When Florence Gaskins came to Dade County in 1896, the railroad had just linked the area to the rest of the nations and black laborers found jobs extending the tracks even further south. Black women such as Gaskins would show that they could parlay a silver of opportunity into successful business ventures and community service in this newly developing area.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1863, Gaskins was a widow when she arrived in Miami. Soon after her arrival, she was one of the organizers of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Like many black women in those days, she began working as a laundress. Cleaning clothes was a labor intensive, low- paying ventures, without washing machines and permanent press fabrics, washerwomen scrubbed, rubbed, boiled, hung out to dry and ironed clothes to spotless perfection. From this laborious profession, Gaskins prospered. She branched out into real estate and later established Miami’s first black employment agency. In addition to her business ventures, Ms. Gaskins is noted for organizing the children of Overtown into a Junior Red Cross group known as the “Black Cross”.