Michael The Black Man Stirs Passions At The Polls

Miami FL

02 November, 2021

11:31 AM

Description

By Mark Sell, Miami Times Contributor, the Miami Times Oct 26, 2021 If you've seen a Trump rally on TV, you can probably recognize Michael the Black Man on sight. As often as not, he's standing right behind the former POTUS, lithe and smiling, with dreadlocks and shades, carrying a "BLACKS FOR TRUMP" sign and wearing a white "BLACKS FOR TRUMP" T-shirt that directs you to his website: Gods2.com – the gateway to his Big Boss Ministries, a registered nonprofit. In the last month, he has used his national profile to lend support to the Nov. 2 "Say Yes Press 240" voting campaign to incorporate Biscayne Gardens, where he resides. His message is not subtle, either on his website, in banners or bus caravans. One sample: "KKK Dems and racist rhinos are against helping Haitians with a new Black City." That may not be the official message of pro-incorporation "Say Yes Vote 240" organizers Bernard Jennings or Elizabeth Judd, both active and committed Democrats. But they do try to be tactful. "Free speech is free speech," said Jennings. "I agree there's bias. I'd never say what he's saying," said Judd. "He gets attention." These are the final days of early voting at the Biscayne Gardens branch library at 100 NE 166th St. As of Monday evening, turnout stood at 916 absentee and 200 early votes, or just over 6% of Biscayne Gardens' 18,500 eligible voters. Jennings expects a turnout of 12-18%. Michael the Black Man's real name is Maurice Symonette. The 62-year-old has also gone by Michael Symonette, Maurice Woodside and Mikael Israel. He remains a devotee of Yahweh Ben Yahweh, aka Hulon Mitchell, who led a successful Black supremacist cult that ran businesses and charities before his conviction for conspiracy to commit murder. Symonette himself was acquitted of two grisly murders. Mitchell, who was given the key to the city of Miami for the organization's charitable works by then Mayor Xavier Suarez in 1990, died in 2007. It was he who led Symonette to Trump nearly 40 years ago. Symonette lives in a five-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a pool on South River Drive in Biscayne Gardens. His main argument is that a majority-Black community should have the power to determine its own destiny. Over the last three or four weeks, he's been leading caravans of two or three giant black buses covered with banners railing against "KKK Dems" and supporting the Hialeah mayoral candidacy of Julio Martinez, of all things, bringing his message to community forums with loudspeakers and bullhorns. Late Monday afternoon, The Miami Times got a message that voters were getting intimidated. Ten minutes later, we arrived at the scene and found a late-model baby blue Rolls Royce Dawn convertible in the roadway on 166th Street, right in front of the "Vote No" booth. The scene was lively, if not intimidating, and voters could walk into the polls unimpeded. With all those buses, the $350,000 Rolls Royce, and the national Blacks for Trump shadowing, one might conclude that the scene was well funded by "dark money" – money from undisclosed, politically driven donors. Symonette insists that is not the case, and that the dozen or so volunteers around him are not paid. Michael the Black Man parks a late-model baby blue Rolls Royce Dawn convertible at a polling place to draw attention to his pro-incorporation message. (Mark Sell for The Miami Times) Of the Rolls Royce, he said, "One of my brothers is letting me hold it so I can ride around and tell the people the truth. Buses come from some other brothers, too, who want to go into business with me to help them rent them out. They can't do business without me because I know all the people." It was at this point that two Miami-Dade police sergeants walked over to Symonette and relayed that another man at the voting site "does not like this conversation," and calmly reminded him to keep all messaging 150 feet from the voting site entrance – and to keep conversations civil and political. "Thank you for your service," Symonette said with a smile before the officers walked away. "Black people are not allowed to have money in America," he said. "As soon as you have money, you go to jail … The best way to operate is to just be broke. I have an oath of poverty. Anything that looks like you got money, you got an investigation." He is passionate about incorporation, citing the organized and murderous destruction of the Black communities in Wilmington, N.C., in 1898, "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921, and Rosewood, Fla., in 1923. In those days, Democrats were the party of segregation. Symonnette is hyper-alert to any sign of prejudice against Blacks or Haitians bubbling out in an incorporation fight he considers mostly racial. But why does he support Trump? "I agree with [him]," said Symonette. "We should do business together, we should be unregulated – not totally unregulated, but we shouldn't have these stupid regulations that block us from doing business. I agree with $25 million for colleges for Black people. I agree with just about all his policies concerning TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and all that stuff to give money away. I agree with him when he says building a wall, because the Bible says Isaiah Chapter 60 verses 18-22: 'Thus sayeth the Lord. Build me a wall and I shall a great and wonderful city.'" Retired school system administrator Estomene Dorcely, 70, campaigns against incorporation. (Mark Sell for The Miami Times) Here, for Symonette, the biblical veered into the Trumpian prophecy from Yahweh ben Yahwen himself. "I believe in Trump because Yahweh ben Yahweh in 1984 said Trump was King Cyrus and he's going to save us from the Confederate rebel demon class," he shared. He added that he welcomes white people, if they respect the will of the community's majority. About 100 feet away, "Vote No" volunteer Estomene Dorcely, 70, a retired school system administrator who left Haiti in 1981, got ready to fold up her tent. "Martin Luther King would be ashamed," she said. "He died for segregation and now people want to segregate us again." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.