A shift in Miami-Dade’s Black political leadership puts the focus on inequality and race

During one of his final Miami-Dade commission meetings after nearly three decades on the dais, Dennis Moss led fellow board members through a talk of unrealized progress for Black Miami in the Miami Herald’s “Separate and Unequal” series.

“It’s an issue I believe needs to be taken up in the future,” said Moss, a commissioner since 1993 and the longest-serving of the 13-seat board’s four Black members.

“While this is a difficult topic of discussion ... still, it is a topic of discussion this board needs to take up ... to respond to the plight of the Black community here.”

The comments came during the final regular meeting for Moss and four other commissioners reelected in 2012 as voters approved a new term-limit rule giving them eight more years in office. The outgoing group of commissioners includes three of the four Black members: Moss; Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson, in office since 2005; and Barbara Jordan, a commissioner since 2000.

They’ll be meeting at least twice again, with a special session scheduled Monday to vote on coronavirus-related legislation and another meeting expected to vote on a pending deal with Brightline for a commuter train between Miami and Aventura.

The November elections could alter the demographic mix of the commission.

In District 9, the seat Moss is vacating, a Hispanic candidate, former Homestead city council member Elvis Maldonado, is running against a Black candidate, outgoing Florida House Democratic leader Kionne McGhee. Moss endorsed McGhee.

Outgoing Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert, who is Black, won Jordan’s District 1 seat in August, and two Black candidates, Miami Commissioner Keon Hardemon and nonprofit executive Gepsie Metellus, both Black, are running for Edmonson’s District 3 seat.

That will leave Jean Monestime, a former board chairman with two more years on the commission before term-limits kick in for the seat he won in 2014, as the lone veteran Black commissioner.

“Hopefully, this conversation will continue on,” Edmonson said. “Commissioner Monestime, we’re leaving it on you.”

For the discussion, Moss had Stephen Hunter Johnson, chairman of the county’s Black Affairs Advisory Board, walk commissioners through a summary of the Miami Herald’s reporting on the prosperity divide the Black population faces in Miami-Dade and the roots of the gap in segregation, racism and unequal opportunities at education, work and housing.

The Herald series pointed to county cuts for an economic-development agency aimed at Black residents, the Miami-Dade Economic Advocacy Trust, and how a home-ownership program designed to close the prosperity gap for Black residents mostly underwrites loans for Hispanic residents.

“I just want to add that the quality of life for Miami-Dade’s Black community is unequal and separate,” John Dixon, director of the Advocacy Trust office, told commissioners Thursday. Dixon said he expected Miami-Dade’s poverty rate, currently 16%, to nearly double once updated figures are announced to reflect the coronavirus crisis.

“Everybody on this screen knows, I would suspect, that Black people are going to be faced with the most impact of what is happening with COVID,” he said during the online meeting. “Whether that be employment, whether that be healthcare, whether that be transportation, whether that be housing.”

Rebeca Sosa, a Hispanic commissioner with two more years in her term, suggested more Miami-Dade funding for vocational training.

“Let’s help them with training schools, technical schools. Let’s change their future,” said Sosa, a Miami-Dade School Board employee. Moss is running for the School Board. “Let’s improve, and let’s continue working on this.”

Jordan recalled a visit to Miami-Dade’s TERRA magnet school in Kendall with Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. She said she began counting the number of Black students she encountered, and was discouraged to see so few. The public school with about 1,800 students has fewer than 50 who are Black, leaving Black enrollment at less than 3%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“That’s a top-notch school,” Jordan said. “We’re talking about, first of all, having to have a recognition that in our school system, we are segregated. We are segregated.”