Wayne Lomax is the Retired Pastor of The Fountain Church in Miami Gardens, Florida. He currently serves as a Compliance Manager for Miami Dade County Public Schools and is the President of The Fountain Endowed Legacy Scholarship Fund. They could’ve done that one too
Byron Donalds and John James are the Republican candidates for governor in the states of Florida and Michigan, respectively. In the 250-year history of America, three African Americans have been elected governor: Douglas Wilder (Virginia, 1990), Deval Patrick (Massachusetts, 2007), and Wes Moore (Maryland, 2023).
Donalds and James are different from these three gentlemen. They are loyal followers of President Donald Trump. As rabid Trump supporters, neither Donalds nor James will align himself with the historical concerns of the Black community. This is not necessarily disastrous. How they align with President Trump is more problematic. Donald Trump called for the death penalty for the Exonerated Five in NYC, led the birther movement against President Obama, referred to Haiti and African countries as “S-Hole” countries, and referred to majority-Black cities as “disgusting, rat and rodent-infested messes.”
The opportunity to elect an African American to the governor’s mansion may not happen again for a very long time. But because of their loyal affiliation with Donald Trump, we cannot vote for these candidates. Not this time. The historical opportunities to vote for an African American for governor are extremely rare, but not this time. Both will lean into the African American community the closer we get to Election Day. They will find ways to distance themselves rhetorically from their core beliefs in order to appeal to familiarity. The closer we get to casting our ballots, the more we must recall the eternal convictions of our ancestors who did more with less. We must do more with more. So our brothers will remain our brothers. We are not at war. We have a difference of opinion. There might have been a day when only the pigmentation would matter, but this is a new day. Not this time.
