Mildred Coleman Crump became the first African American councilwoman in the 336-year history of the Newark City Council in New Jersey when she assumed office in 1994. She is also the first woman to serve as council president for Newark, New Jersey, which she did from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2013-2023. Mildred Coleman Crump is a past recipient of the Susan Burgess Memorial Award for Exemplary Leadership from the National Democratic Municipal Officials. She is in the New Jersey State League of Municipalities Elected Officials Hall of Fame.
She was born in Detroit, Michigan, on November 6, 1939, to Edgar Coleman and Mattie Lee Johnson, both from Georgia. She has a brother, James. Mildred Coleman Crump attended and graduated from Detroit’s public schools and is a 1961 alum of Wayne State University. She earned her Master of Public Administration degree from Rutgers University–Newark.
Crump was the first African-American Braille teacher in Detroit, and in 1965, relocated to New Jersey, becoming the state’s first African-American Braille teacher. She worked for the New Jersey Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired until her retirement in 2003.
She is married to Cecil Crump, with whom she has two children. Mildred Coleman Crump is a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. member and a Golden Heritage Life Member of the Newark Branch NAACP. She is a charter member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C., and served on the board of directors of Habitat for Humanity, Newark.
In 2008, the School for the Blind in Wassa-Akropong of Wassa Amenfi East Municipal District in the western region of Ghana named its new library in honor of Mildred C. Crump.