Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Progressive activist Mitchell Stollberg dies
Mitchell Stollberg, a longtime progressive political activist in Broward County has died. He was 66.
Stollberg died at his Margate home sometime over the weekend, and was found Monday by police, said his sister, Shelly Graham, of Dallas, Ga. Stollberg hadn’t been answering his phone and didn’t answer the door when a friend went there on Monday.
Stollberg had a bloodborne cancer in recent years. Although it was in remission, he had been experiencing other health issues recently. His sister said he did not have COVID-19; he’d been tested and just received results showing he was negative.
Politics was Stollberg’s passion. He was known to Democratic activists throughout the county and was a leader in the progressive wing of the party.
“He had a big heart. And he loved, loved what he did with the political part of his life,” Graham said.
“He was very outspoken, and he would fight hard,” said Melissa WardPeterson, recording secretary of the Broward Democratic Party. “He fought hard, but he was also very kind.”
In a 2019 interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Stollberg said he was hoping for a progressive political wave. “As far as I’m concerned, the party needs to move to the left. The progressive movement is larger than ever before.”
Stollberg was a strong supporter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.
He was a Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
“He was the biggest Bernie Sanders fan,” said Victoria Olson, a Democratic Party committeewoman in Oakland Park, a friend of Stollberg’s.
After he became ill, before he turned 65 and was eligible for Medicare, his experience paying for health care turned him into an outspoken advocate for the Medicare for All proposed
program of universal health care.
“He was one of the fiercest advocates for Medicare for All in Broward County,” Ward-Peterson said. “He would share about his own struggles with illness and with our broken insurance system. He just fought to make sure that health care was a human right for everyone.”
An out gay man for his entire adult life, his sister said he got into politics as an outgrowth of his involvement in activism over HIV and AIDS.
He was an officer in many political clubs, including the Oakland Park Democratic Club, the Broward Progressive Democrats of America, the Broward chapter of the group Our Revolution, and the state Democratic Party’s
Progressive Caucus. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Oakland Park City Commission in 2016.
He worked in the marketing department at Service America in Fort Lauderdale for many years until it closed, Graham said. He also worked for a time making jewelry.
Mitchel Stollberg was born in the Bronx, N.Y., on Feb. 10, 1954, and raised in North Miami, where the family moved when he was 2 years old.
He is survived by his sister and two nephews.
Graham said she was talking with her brother’s friends to decide on a suitable memorial. No memorial service is planned, she said.