Miami arts icon Marshall Davis to enter crowded race in congressional District 24
A Miami cultural icon is entering the crowded race to succeed Frederica Wilson in Congress.
Longtime director and now namesake of the Marshal L. Davis African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Liberty City entered the race just ahead of Friday’s qualifying deadline.
Davis was the center’s director for four decades, starting in 1983, and turned the arts center into a talent incubator for a generation of Miami’s Black artists.
He told the Miami Herald in an interview Friday he hopes to bring the power of creativity and the arts into Congress.
“In all the problems that we have, there’s a solution. You just have to have the compassion and the resources to make the changes that need to be made,” he said “I’m hoping from an artistic and creative thought pattern, I’ll be able to help make those changes.”
Davis, 76, said that he had not previously considered a future in politics, but that friends asked him to run after Wilson announced she would not run for reelection.
He was initially opposed, until someone told him, “Sometimes the leader that you’re looking for is in yourself.”
“What I have done in the inner city for some of these children that have been disenfranchised is an indication of the type of leader I’ll be,” he said.
Davis helped create an after school program and a summer arts conservatory at the center, and his impact and legacy was documented in the feature film “An Instrumental Start: A Model for the Nation.”
He’s the seventh Democratic candidate to qualify the primary election for one of the rare safe Democratic seats in South Florida without an incumbent.
State Sen. Shevrin Jones, county commissioner Oliver Gilbert, former county commissioner Jean Monestime and attorney and descendant of two of the district’s former representatives, Kendrick Meek Jr., are also in the race.
Wilson has not endorsed a candidate in the race. Davis said he has a longstanding relationship with Wilson, but had not talked to her about his planned run before filing.
He said his plans for Congress are a natural extension of his celebrated work in the arts.
“Top priorities for me is making sure that there’s equity, that we can all discover who we are and what we’re capable of doing,” Davis said.
“That’s what we try to do for the children, we try to create an atmosphere where they feel safe, look out for their well-being, and we develop them. Why can’t we do that and spread that umbrella to everyone?”
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