Institutional Dispatch · E5 Enclave

The McCartney Academy

E5 Enclave Incorporated · Liberty City, Miami — A School and a Business Center: the Liberty City Ecosystem at Charles R. Drew, District 2.

“Built, not begged. A school is the catalyst of a community. They took ours. We are building it back.”

I

Why We Build

§ Section I

A school is not a building. It is the catalyst of a community — the thing that makes a people proud, and capable, and whole. Overtown had one. In the 1960s the highways came, scattered the neighborhood, and the school was phased out. What was taken was not just brick; it was the engine of a people.

The McCartney Academy rebuilds that engine. It is named for Ralph McCartney — a son of Overtown who spent his life keeping children in school and out of jail, and who fought, and won, to help rebuild the very school the system let decline. His grand-nephew, Israel Lee Armstead, founder of E5 Enclave, carries it forward.

The case, in one sentence: a generation of Liberty City children needs the catalyst their grandparents were denied — and for the first time, Florida law has reopened the door to reclaim a public facility and put it back to work. We intend to walk through it.

0
Overtown residents displaced by I-95 & I-395
0
School — the absolute catalyst of a community
District 2
Liberty City · Miami
They gave us Booker Washington and made us proud — and they took it away, and they destroyed us.Ralph McCartney, Oral History, 1997
II

The Namesake — Ralph McCartney

§ Section II

Ralph McCartney was the youngest of eight children born to a Bahamian family in Overtown, in a home that ran like a community center — where, in his telling, “never did a hungry person cross that door and leave out that same way.” He graduated Booker T. Washington in 1952, served his country, and gave his working life to his community: the Urban League, the Community Relations Board, and finally the county jail, where the man who had spent years trying to keep young people out of it now met them inside.

The record honors him. The City of Opa-Locka proclaimed “Mr. Ralph McCartney Day” in 1997. The United States Congressional Record carries a 1994 tribute from Rep. Carrie Meek naming his work behind the scenes: the Edison Park I-95 overpass he fought to build so children no longer risked their lives crossing the highway to reach school; his role, with the community, in the rebuilding of Booker T. Washington School; and his service to the Department of Defense Race Relations Institute.

Fig. II — Archival Document · Opa-Locka Proclamation, 1997 City of Opa-Locka Proclamation declaring Mr. Ralph McCartney Day, 1997
0
U.S. Congressional Record tribute honoring his legacy
0
“Mr. Ralph McCartney Day” proclaimed in Opa-Locka
0
Class of 1952 — Booker T. Washington High School
Asked how he wished to be remembered, he answered simply: that I was a McCartney.Congressional Record, February 1, 1994
III

The Wound — Overtown, by Design

§ Section III

Overtown was the Harlem of the South — a dense, self-sustaining Black community of churches, businesses, theaters, and schools. In the 1960s, Interstates 95 and 395 were routed directly through its heart, bisecting a community of roughly 40,000 residents into four severed fragments. Then the schools were phased out. McCartney called it “the Big Monster.”

This was not an accident of geography. It was a decision. Naming it plainly is the first act of repair.

Fig. III·a — Before · Historic Overtown (source: housingissues.org) Historic Overtown before the highways
Fig. III·b — After · I-95 through Overtown, 1960s (source: housingissues.org) I-95 cutting through Overtown
0
Expressways routed directly through Overtown’s heart
0
Severed fragments where a single, unified community stood
0
The Decade of the Cut — structural displacement
IV

The Academy — STEAM, and a Doula Corps

§ Section IV

We are building two things under one roof. First, a STEAM core — science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics — that prepares Liberty City’s young people not for the margins but for the frontier. Second, a Doula and Black-maternal-health track that trains and credentials community birth workers, because in this country a Black mother dies in childbirth at more than two and a half times the rate of a white mother, and trained community support is among the most direct answers we have.

A school on one side; economic and human capacity on the other. Education and a business center, together — one ecosystem.

STEAM + Doula
Integrated dual-track community educational model
0
Black maternal mortality ratio (the crisis we actively answer)

Program specifics — curriculum, cohort sizes, enrollment timeline — are in development and finalized with our district partners.

V

The Strategy — Schools of Hope

§ Section V

For the first time, Florida law makes this reclamation possible. The 2025 “Schools of Hope” reforms, effective July 1, 2025, reordered who gets first claim on a community’s surplus schools:

The Florida Department of Education’s Miami-Dade Vacant & Underused Facilities report is the live inventory — the exact pipeline these laws were built to channel. E5 Enclave intends to use this framework to secure a permanent home for the Academy in District 2.

HB 443
Right of first refusal on surplus public facilities
0
Schools of Hope program annual funding floor
0
Statutes aligned and effective as of July 1, 2025
The door the highway closed, the law has reopened. We intend to walk through it.

This is strategic analysis; current statute text is verified before any action.

VI

The Forum — The Lotus Gate

§ Section VI

The business-center half of the ecosystem has a name and a form: The Lotus Gate Forum — a civic ark of memory, council, and transmission. A place for the community the highways scattered to gather, decide, and pass its inheritance forward. It is the room where a neighborhood becomes a people again.

Fig. VI — Architecture · Blueprint concept of The Lotus Gate Forum The Lotus Gate Forum Architectural Blueprint
Memory · Council · Transmission
A sovereign, civic ark for the community

Concept design shown; capacity and program in development.

VII

Stand With Us

¶ Choose Your Door

There are four ways to build this — choose yours.

01 / Capital

Invest

Institutional partners and impact investors: back the facility acquisition and the ecosystem that grows on it. The institutional case and data room are available on request.

Request Case ↗
02 / Philanthropy

Give

Donors: fund the first cohort, the build, and the structural future of a Liberty City child.

Donate Now ↗
03 / Collaboration

Volunteer

Teachers, doulas, builders, organizers — lend your technical hands and intellect to the physical work.

Join Coalition ↗
04 / Movement

Join

Community and the coalition of the willing: this is your house. Wear it. Build it. Hold it.

Connect With Us ↗
0
Sovereign ways to co-sign and build this ecosystem
0
One house, built by many hands
We are not asking you to fund a program. We are inviting you to rebuild a catalyst.

A steward — “Joseph” — will soon live on this page as your point of contact: the coalition, personified.