By Brian C. Johnson

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson recently wrote an opinion column about “the congressional seat that Black history built.” Surprisingly, she wasn’t describing her own seat — Florida’s 24th District, which she is leaving after 16 years of admirable service — but Florida’s 20th District in Broward County. Voters in both districts will choose new representatives in the August 18 primary.

And while her instructive insights were geared towards District 20, those same

standards outlined by Wilson must be applied to District 24. Paraphrasing her words, a seat like this is a trust, earned through struggle, that voters must actively honor, protect, and grant only to candidates with character that is fitting and commitment that is for us.

Many of us who know all seven candidates well believe Shevrin Jones is not only the better person, but the better choice to represent Florida’s 24th District in Congress. Voters must embrace that truth and act on it: cast a ballot that honors and protects this district. It was built by Black history, as Congresswoman Wilson reminded us — and it must remain a catalyst for Black progress, not just a monument to it. Although Wilson has endorsed another candidate, by her own high standards, Shevrin should be the clear choice. Shevrin is the logical next successor. 

The late great Carrie P. Meek served as a State Representative and State Senator before she won this Congressional seat. Kendrick Meek, Sr. served as a State Representative and State Senator before he won it. Wilson served as a State Representative and State Senator before she won it too. Every occupant of this seat has climbed the same ladder — and Shevrin is the only candidate in this race who has climbed it: a former State Representative and a sitting State Senator now seeking to serve next.

Shevrin’s legislative record is built on protecting and supporting everyday people. He has spent nearly 14 years in the Florida Legislature — one of the hardest places for a Democrat to get anything done under a Republican supermajority — and still turned dozens of bills into law as a primary sponsor or co-sponsor: police body-camera standards, the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, the Teddy Bridgewater act to protect coaches who care and health-equity protections like mandatory sickle cell pain-management training for doctors.

By Congresswoman Wilson’s own standard, Gilbert doesn’t qualify. He has never served in the Florida Legislature — not the House, not the Senate — and has spent his entire career in nonpartisan local office: on the Miami Gardens City Council, as its mayor, and now on the Miami-Dade County Commission. He has never had to answer to voters outside his own city or county district, let alone build the coalition this seat demands.

His hometown record raises its own questions. Miami Gardens has grown less affordable, gentrification has accelerated, and the city’s Black population share has fallen during Gilbert’s fourteen years in local office. Residents are still asking a basic question: where are the jobs, the business ownership, the affordable housing, and the community wealth that Black families dreamed of when they fought to incorporate Miami Gardens in the first place?

That question is part of why Gilbert has lost the support of the very women who built the seat he now holds. Betty T. Ferguson, who helped lead the fight to incorporate Miami Gardens and held the Miami-Dade Commission District 1 seat from 1993 to 2004, and Barbara Jordan, who succeeded her and held it until Gilbert won it in 2020, are both backing Shevrin instead.

Gilbert has spent more time courting powerful donors than fighting for his own residents. As Miami Gardens mayor, he and the city council initially opposed Formula 1 racing around Hard Rock Stadium over noise and traffic concerns — then cleared the way for it anyway, with a $5 million Community Benefits Package. Four years later, only about $1 million of that promised money has been spent, and residents say what’s left has gone to parties and events instead of the jobs, scholarships, and business partnerships they were promised.

He has also accepted $70,000 from CDR, a Miami-based emergency management firm that helped build the Everglades immigration detention center widely known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” And he was one of four Democrats who joined Miami-Dade Republicans in a lopsided 9-1 vote to co-name a Hialeah street “President Donald J. Trump Avenue” — a vote he later brushed off to reporters as unimportant.

As Congresswoman Wilson rightly indicated, a seat like Florida’s 24th Congressional District must be actively guarded, or it could be lost to a candidate the community cannot fully trust. Wilson herself has endorsed Oliver Gilbert as her successor — but I believe an honest application of her own standard leads to a different conclusion: Shevrin, not Gilbert, is the one who actually lives up to it.

This race comes down to money versus community. Shevrin has spent 14 years building trust with the people this seat actually represents. Gilbert has built his campaign in part on donors like CDR — the company run by DeSantis allies that also profited from building the Alligator Alcatraz detention center — the same kind of relationships that shaped his handling of Miami Gardens and the deal that brought Formula 1 to its doorstep.

Like District 20, District 24 is “a seat paid for by generations of Black sacrifice”, and it is too precious to be bought by wealthy donors who occasionally seek to overrule our needs for their profits. It was meant to be a trust, renewed generation after generation by voters willing to ask hard questions — even of the leaders they respect most, and even when that means respectfully disagreeing with the very Congresswoman we’re honoring. Choose the candidate whose record shows they care about community over power, integrity over money, and the legacy of District 24 over any single endorsement, including hers.

Brian C. Johnson
Former Vice Mayor
City of West Park
Active Voter/Resident in Florida’s Congressional District 24

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