‘A man of love for all people’: Remembering Little Haiti activist Michael Clarkson
Miami Herald
By Michael Butler
This article originally appeared in the Miami Herald.
Michael Clarkson speaks at a Catalyst Miami event.
Photo by Roxy Azuaje
Michael Clarkson, a Little Haiti community activist known for being an outspoken advocate for environmental conservation, died late last month after a private battle with cancer. He was 75.
Clarkson was born in 1949 in Louisville, Kentucky. As a teen, he was inspired by the activism of Louisville native Muhammad Ali, and he served as a founding member of the Louisville chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Ali’s move to Miami in 1960 made Clarkson do the same, and Clarkson moved back and forth from South Florida to Kentucky over the years before making Miami his permanent home in 2016.
Throughout the 1970s, Clarkson noticed how the growth of the environmental movement stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement and aligned with the urban renewal work that the Black Panthers espoused. Seeing this, Clarkson became an environmental advocate.
Clarkson, who also was an activist during the McDuffie Riots in the 1980s, regularly spoke at community meetings and organized feeding events in Little Haiti. He believed social issues like systemic racism and poverty had direct connections to the health of the planet.
“We have this ultimate common ground. He found the Earth as his focus, on where we had to focus our healing,” said Albert Gomez, a longtime friend and colleague of Clarkson. “That’s why most of his programming was around green gardens and feeding the community.”
Gomez, 51, was one of three people in the activist’s hospital room before he died. Clarkson kept his health issues private and did not want to worry the people in his larger orbit.
While Clarkson was not rich with monetary assets, he worked to make the best use possible of his time. Despite experiencing financial instability in his own life, he spent his days organizing to provide for others, Gomez said.
“There’s something to say about when you’re doing something and are worried about paying rent, but you’re calling around to raise money for this week’s feeding,” he said. “In my training, it’s the fundamental mentality of resilience. It’s a mindset that you’re going to be fine.”
Michael Clarkson (middle) speaks with local residents about concerns.
Photo by Roxy Azuaje
Clarkson’s love for the community was rivaled by his passion for Miami Heat basketball. When the Heat defeated the Boston Celtics to go to the 2023 NBA Finals, Gomez took Clarkson to watch the game at the Kaseya Center. “He said, ‘If I don’t do anything else, I checked the box tonight,’” Gomez remembered.
Zelalem Adefris, the CEO of the nonprofit Catalyst Miami, first met Clarkson in 2016 at a Little Haiti community meeting. She was captivated by his remarks and asked him to join the nonprofit’s new CLEAR program, leadership training educating people about climate threats in Miami, finding solutions and building up advocacy to support their neighborhoods.
“He was very profound, and also in his ability to plainly state and see what’s happening and draw parallels between things he’s seen in his lifetime growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s and things happening in Miami,” she said. “He would always clearly state what needed to be done with a clear analysis and backed it up.”
Adefris, 32, appreciates how Clarkson motivated her to be a more vocal and resourceful citizen. By working with Clarkson through CLEAR, Adefris helped educate hundreds of community members on climate change and ways to support the neighborhoods in which they lived.
Clarkson was skilled at understanding community issues like extreme heat that were not being addressed, she said. In an effort to gather data that didn’t exist at the time on extreme heat temperatures in underserved areas, Adefris and Clarkson had a plan. Between 2018 and 2019, Clarkson worked with young people in Little Haiti to leave heat-tracking sensors around the neighborhood to research how hot the temperatures in the community were.
After analyzing measurements from the heat sensors, the team discovered that Little Haiti was actually 10 to 30 degrees hotter than the temperatures reported by the Weather Channel.
Clarkson also reconnected with his daughter Joy Afeni Clarkson-Bowie in his final years, meeting her for the first time in 2016. Clarkson had named her Joy Afeni in honor of his fellow Black Panther Afeni Shakur, the mother of Tupac Shakur. He was married to Clarkson-Bowie’s mother for seven years, but the couple divorced when she was still an infant.
People often ask Clarkson-Bowie, 43, about the experience of first meeting her father as an adult, and she insists it was a peaceful moment.
“It was eye-opening to say the least,” she said. “It was all love. My dad was known for his activism all around the country. I understand things in his heart and mind that he had to do. He had to spread his love. No matter where he was, it was about his love for people.”
Today, Clarkson-Bowie is a Christian evangelist based in Miami Gardens focused on helping the community through food drives. During the same period in which Clarkson-Bowie met her father, she adopted her infant daughter, Spirit. In 2019, she and her husband, Mareo Bowie, had their second child, Summer. Both children adored Clarkson, and he became a fixture in their lives.
“They loved him,” Clarkson-Bowie said. “He made it his business to come to piano recitals and Chuck E. Cheese.”
Michael Clarkson with his granddaughters Spirit (left) and Summer (right).
Photo courtesy Joy Afeni Clarkson-Bowie
Clarkson’s apprentice and collaborator Françoise Alexandre, 38, met Clarkson in 2016 and instantly felt connected to him. The two partnered in 2017 to form Konscious Kontractors, a construction cooperative designed to support underserved communities like Little Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Irma.
“A lot of folks had ample time to leave, but those who couldn’t go anywhere had to mitigate. We had to fight,” Alexandre said. “We got together with comrades in the community. We went to Home Depot and started boarding up vulnerable homeowners’ properties.”
A native of Okay, Haiti, Alexandre had moved to Miami when he was 10. He and Clarkson shared an affinity for their Black heritage, and Alexandre said he learned much from Clarkson.
“Michael Clarkson is and was an ancestor among the living,” said Alexandre. “The folkloric mysticism was here before he passed. It was there with what he instilled in you. Wherever your equilibrium lacked, Clarkson had the right energy.”
“He didn’t want a statue. He wanted his thoughts and ideas to become things for our people,” Alexandre added.
At the time of his death, Clarkson was living with Alexandre and his wife, Rhoda Louissaint. The couple considered Clarkson to be an adoptive grandfather of their children, Malaky, 5, and Soley, 2.
As Clarkson-Bowie remembers her father, she’s taken solace in the many calls she’s received from people of all backgrounds who considered her father their own. She’s found joy in being reminded of how much his love for humanity guided his life’s work.
“He was a man of love for all people,” she said. “He was a man of giving and accepting of love. ... He did all of those things because of his love.”
By Michael Butler
This article originally appeared in the Miami Herald.
Michael Clarkson speaks at a Catalyst Miami event.
Photo by Roxy Azuaje
Michael Clarkson, a Little Haiti community activist known for being an outspoken advocate for environmental conservation, died late last month after a private battle with cancer. He was 75.
Clarkson was born in 1949 in Louisville, Kentucky. As a teen, he was inspired by the activism of Louisville native Muhammad Ali, and he served as a founding member of the Louisville chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Ali’s move to Miami in 1960 made Clarkson do the same, and Clarkson moved back and forth from South Florida to Kentucky over the years before making Miami his permanent home in 2016.
Throughout the 1970s, Clarkson noticed how the growth of the environmental movement stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement and aligned with the urban renewal work that the Black Panthers espoused. Seeing this, Clarkson became an environmental advocate.
Clarkson, who also was an activist during the McDuffie Riots in the 1980s, regularly spoke at community meetings and organized feeding events in Little Haiti. He believed social issues like systemic racism and poverty had direct connections to the health of the planet.
“We have this ultimate common ground. He found the Earth as his focus, on where we had to focus our healing,” said Albert Gomez, a longtime friend and colleague of Clarkson. “That’s why most of his programming was around green gardens and feeding the community.”
Gomez, 51, was one of three people in the activist’s hospital room before he died. Clarkson kept his health issues private and did not want to worry the people in his larger orbit.
While Clarkson was not rich with monetary assets, he worked to make the best use possible of his time. Despite experiencing financial instability in his own life, he spent his days organizing to provide for others, Gomez said.
“There’s something to say about when you’re doing something and are worried about paying rent, but you’re calling around to raise money for this week’s feeding,” he said. “In my training, it’s the fundamental mentality of resilience. It’s a mindset that you’re going to be fine.”
Michael Clarkson (middle) speaks with local residents about concerns.
Photo by Roxy Azuaje
Clarkson’s love for the community was rivaled by his passion for Miami Heat basketball. When the Heat defeated the Boston Celtics to go to the 2023 NBA Finals, Gomez took Clarkson to watch the game at the Kaseya Center. “He said, ‘If I don’t do anything else, I checked the box tonight,’” Gomez remembered.
Zelalem Adefris, the CEO of the nonprofit Catalyst Miami, first met Clarkson in 2016 at a Little Haiti community meeting. She was captivated by his remarks and asked him to join the nonprofit’s new CLEAR program, leadership training educating people about climate threats in Miami, finding solutions and building up advocacy to support their neighborhoods.
“He was very profound, and also in his ability to plainly state and see what’s happening and draw parallels between things he’s seen in his lifetime growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s and things happening in Miami,” she said. “He would always clearly state what needed to be done with a clear analysis and backed it up.”
Adefris, 32, appreciates how Clarkson motivated her to be a more vocal and resourceful citizen. By working with Clarkson through CLEAR, Adefris helped educate hundreds of community members on climate change and ways to support the neighborhoods in which they lived.
Clarkson was skilled at understanding community issues like extreme heat that were not being addressed, she said. In an effort to gather data that didn’t exist at the time on extreme heat temperatures in underserved areas, Adefris and Clarkson had a plan. Between 2018 and 2019, Clarkson worked with young people in Little Haiti to leave heat-tracking sensors around the neighborhood to research how hot the temperatures in the community were.
After analyzing measurements from the heat sensors, the team discovered that Little Haiti was actually 10 to 30 degrees hotter than the temperatures reported by the Weather Channel.
Clarkson also reconnected with his daughter Joy Afeni Clarkson-Bowie in his final years, meeting her for the first time in 2016. Clarkson had named her Joy Afeni in honor of his fellow Black Panther Afeni Shakur, the mother of Tupac Shakur. He was married to Clarkson-Bowie’s mother for seven years, but the couple divorced when she was still an infant.
People often ask Clarkson-Bowie, 43, about the experience of first meeting her father as an adult, and she insists it was a peaceful moment.
“It was eye-opening to say the least,” she said. “It was all love. My dad was known for his activism all around the country. I understand things in his heart and mind that he had to do. He had to spread his love. No matter where he was, it was about his love for people.”
Today, Clarkson-Bowie is a Christian evangelist based in Miami Gardens focused on helping the community through food drives. During the same period in which Clarkson-Bowie met her father, she adopted her infant daughter, Spirit. In 2019, she and her husband, Mareo Bowie, had their second child, Summer. Both children adored Clarkson, and he became a fixture in their lives.
“They loved him,” Clarkson-Bowie said. “He made it his business to come to piano recitals and Chuck E. Cheese.”
Michael Clarkson with his granddaughters Spirit (left) and Summer (right).
Photo courtesy Joy Afeni Clarkson-Bowie
Clarkson’s apprentice and collaborator Françoise Alexandre, 38, met Clarkson in 2016 and instantly felt connected to him. The two partnered in 2017 to form Konscious Kontractors, a construction cooperative designed to support underserved communities like Little Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Irma.
“A lot of folks had ample time to leave, but those who couldn’t go anywhere had to mitigate. We had to fight,” Alexandre said. “We got together with comrades in the community. We went to Home Depot and started boarding up vulnerable homeowners’ properties.”
A native of Okay, Haiti, Alexandre had moved to Miami when he was 10. He and Clarkson shared an affinity for their Black heritage, and Alexandre said he learned much from Clarkson.
“Michael Clarkson is and was an ancestor among the living,” said Alexandre. “The folkloric mysticism was here before he passed. It was there with what he instilled in you. Wherever your equilibrium lacked, Clarkson had the right energy.”
“He didn’t want a statue. He wanted his thoughts and ideas to become things for our people,” Alexandre added.
At the time of his death, Clarkson was living with Alexandre and his wife, Rhoda Louissaint. The couple considered Clarkson to be an adoptive grandfather of their children, Malaky, 5, and Soley, 2.
As Clarkson-Bowie remembers her father, she’s taken solace in the many calls she’s received from people of all backgrounds who considered her father their own. She’s found joy in being reminded of how much his love for humanity guided his life’s work.
“He was a man of love for all people,” she said. “He was a man of giving and accepting of love. ... He did all of those things because of his love.”
