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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIn 2023, Marvin Dunn met with faculty and students at New College to discuss Black history in Florida and attacks on educational freedom in the state.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIn 2023, Marvin Dunn met with faculty and students at New College to discuss Black history in Florida and attacks on educational freedom in the state.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Marvin Dunn photo<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: This profile is part of New Times\u2019 People to Watch issue, spotlighting figures we expect to make a big impact in Miami in 2026.<\/p>\n
Miami is a city known more for its surface-level trendy glitz and glamour than for substantially deep historical clout. Even the history it does claim is usually dressed up to look pretty: Art Deco<\/a> fonts, vintage postcards, and a carefully curated past that looks great on a condo lobby wall.<\/p>\n But Dr. Marvin Dunn sees things through a different lens. The longtime Florida International University<\/a> professor emeritus has spent decades pointing out the parts of local history that risk being forgotten and asking why they\u2019re always the first to get erased. As one of the most prominent voices documenting Black Miami\u2019s story, Dunn has devoted himself to the unglamorous work of public memory: Teaching, writing, touring, organizing, and, when necessary, making noise.<\/p>\n In 2026, he\u2019s worth watching not because of any single fight, but because he has emerged as one of South Florida\u2019s most persistent figures, insisting that history (Black history in particular) is not disposable, even when powerful political and financial interests would prefer it be treated that way.<\/p>\n The recent battle over the proposed Trump Presidential Library<\/a> in downtown Miami is the clearest example of Dunn\u2019s approach. When a valuable parcel tied to Miami Dade College was steered toward a Trump-controlled foundation, Dunn didn\u2019t limit his objections to partisan politics. He challenged the underlying logic of the deal itself: Who public land belongs to, and who gets to decide its future.<\/p>\n \u201cIt hit me immediately as a theft of land that belongs to children unborn in Miami-Dade County,\u201d Dunn said at the time.<\/a> \u201cYou\u2019re stealing land from children who are not even born yet, and any politician who would stoop to that\u2026is entitled to my sense of anger and repulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n That challenge briefly halted the transfer and forced the issue into the open, drawing hours of public testimony and scrutiny. Although the college\u2019s board later re-approved the deal after a redo meeting and the lawsuit was dismissed, the episode served as a case study in what Dunn has been arguing for years: that procedural compliance is often used as a shield, not a safeguard; and that \u201cby the book\u201d doesn\u2019t always mean in the public interest.<\/p>\n For Dunn, the library fight appears less as an endpoint than a symptom. It sits within a much broader struggle over who controls historical narratives, academic freedom, and civic space at a moment when public education itself is under sustained political attack.<\/p>\n In Florida, those pressures have been intensified by Governor Ron DeSantis\u2019 campaign against so-called \u201cwoke indoctrination,\u201d including the Stop WOKE Act, which took effect in 2022 and reshaped how race, history, and systemic inequality can be discussed in classrooms. Dunn has become one of the law\u2019s most vocal critics, publicly pressing DeSantis on what, exactly, professors are now allowed to teach, and whether lived experience itself has become off-limits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not allow DeSantis to kill our history,\u201d Dunn told New Times in 2023<\/a>. \u201cWe just won\u2019t allow it. We will take our history directly to the parents if that\u2019s what\u2019s required, and apparently, it is what is required.\u201d<\/p>\n That defiance has taken practical form. Through the Miami Center for Racial Justice<\/a>, which Dunn helped establish after the murder of George Floyd, he has worked to distribute banned books and create alternative pathways for students to access African American history<\/a> at a time when school districts and universities are pulling back. His concern, he says, extends far beyond any single demographic.<\/p>\n