Miami Haitian community advocate and educator Jean-Claude Exulien dies at 85

Jean-Claude Exulien, a pioneer in Miami’s Haitian community, was fondly known as Mèt Zin — Creole for “The Newsman.”

Exulien, who died on Jan. 4 in Miami at 85 from liver cancer, according to Sant La’s Leonie Hermantin, “was dedicated to teaching Haitian history and culture,” said Miami historian Dorothy Jenkins Fields.

Fields, founder of The Black Archives at the Historic Lyric Theater in Overtown, worked with Exulien, Daniel Fils-Aime Sr. and Claude Charles to found the Haitian American Historical Society in 2001.

The society’s first major project was the erection of a monument to the Haitian soldiers who fought during the American Revolutionary War in the Battle of Savannah in 1779, Fields said.

“Unknown to most, this is an important chapter in America’s history,” she said.

The monument was dedicated in Franklin Square in Savannah, Georgia, in 2007.

“Every year in October there is a weekend-long celebration of the valiant Haitian soldiers who fought at the Battle of Savannah. Tourists from around the world join the Haitian community in this important annual celebration,” Fields said.

“As we continue to face vulnerable migrant populations arriving by land and by sea, may we be forever inspired by Jean-Claude Exulien’s words and deeds,” said Gepsie M. Metellus, Sant La’s executive director, in a statement and obituary provided to the Miami Herald.

A born educator

Exulien, who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, had a gift for communication.

He earned his bachelor’s in anthropology in 1961 and another bachelor’s degree in economics in 1968 from Université d’État d’Haïti. Exulien, who was a trained actor, founded the National Theater of Haiti in 1972 and taught history at local universities.

From Haiti to Miami

Exulien’s 15-year career as a social studies teacher in Haiti ended abruptly when government police, the Ton Ton Macoutes, arrested and imprisoned him for nearly a year. Exulien said his offense was criticizing Jean-Claude Duvalier in class.

“When you teach social studies sometimes you have to criticize an institution or its behavior. In Haiti it’s very dangerous,” Exulien told The Miami News in 1985.

Miami beckoned when, on May 8, 1977, he escaped the Duvalier dictatorship’s Fort Dimanche prison, where opponents of the regime were sent to be killed.

Fluent in English, Spanish, French and Creole, and with a teaching opportunity and family close by, Exulien told Rise Miami News that Miami suited him more than French-speaking Montreal where many Haitian exiles had migrated to in the late 1970s. He said South Florida and the North Miami neighborhood known as Little Haiti he chose for his family was closer to his homeland in not only proximity but also in spirit. He felt by raising a family in Little Haiti he could make a difference.

He bought a three-bedroom home in Little Haiti in 1978 to raise his children with his wife Mona.

“If we don’t invest in our own community, who will?” Exulien told the Miami Herald in 1995. “I can easily do like others — go get credit and buy a house in Kendall or wherever — but this is the area that has our country’s name.”

Advocating for Haitians

After arriving in Miami, Exulien quickly advocated for the rights of the growing number of asylum seekers that were coming to the United States by sea, according to Sant La, a neighborhood group formed in 2000 by community leaders and service providers to help empower and mentor the growing Haitian community.

“North Miami is saddened by the passing of Mét Zin,” North Miami Mayor Alix Desulme said in a statement. “He helped so many people from Haiti secure a better life in the United States. We are forever grateful for his service and his tireless efforts to advance the Haitian American community in South Florida.”

Exulien coordinated a youth and elderly support program and taught literacy classes to Haitian immigrants at the Pierre Toussaint Catholic Center, which provides outreach services to the Haitian community. He spoke regularly on Creole-language radio programs to keep the local Haitian community informed on how news coming out of South Florida and nationally could have implications for them.

“Some friend told me one time ‘It’s not difficult for you, because you used to teach at a higher level.’ I said ‘No it’s not a problem because I love these people, they are my people.’ Until today that is my job, to teach them how to write in French, Creole and English,” he told Rise Miami News in 2019 from his office at the Center of Information and Orientation in Little Haiti.

There, he worked as a program director and instructor of history and literacy. He also discussed current events, culture and history on Radio Mega WJCC 1700 AM and addressed audiences at the Miami Book Fair.

In 1977, Exulien was among the first to join South Florida’s then-new Haitian-led social service agency, the Haitian American Community Association of Dade County, where he served as director of social services.

“Jean-Claude Exulien was a gentleman and consummate educator who devoted his life to teaching Haitian history and civic responsibilities to his students and the Haitian community. He was a great advocate for the rights of asylum seekers, and he will be remembered by many as one who motivated the Haitian refugees to stand up for their rights,” Rulx Jean-Bart, former executive director of the Haitian Refugee Center, told Sant La.

Exulien was also one of the founding members of the Miami-based organizing collective, Konbit Libète. And he was a co-host on one of the first Haitian Creole public affairs talk radio shows on Radio Solèy.

Years ago, the man known as Mèt Zin gifted Sant La with boxes of local and national newspaper clippings that featured stories of Haitians living in South Florida. “His passion for education informed the entire course of his career,” Sant La said in its obituary on Exulien.

Survivors, services

Exulien’s survivors include his wife Mona, their four children and their grandchildren.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 21, at Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church, 110 NE 62nd St., Miami.

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