Future mayor of Seattle, Norman B. Rice was born in Denver, Colorado. He migrated to Seattle in 1970 to attend college. In 1972 he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and two years later a master’s degree in public administration both from the University of … Read MoreNorm Rice (1943- )
Freeman Roberson Bosley, Jr., is the first African American Mayor of St. Louis, Missouri. Bosley was born in St. Louis on July 20, 1954, the son of Freeman Roberson and Marjorie Bosley. His father, a long-time alderman in St. Louis, unsuccessfully ran for mayor in … Read MoreFreeman Roberson Bosley Jr. (1954- )
Sharon Pratt Dixon was born on January 30, 1944 in Washington, D.C. to parents Carlisle Pratt and Mildred (Petticord) Pratt. Carlisle was a Washington, D.C. Superior Court Judge. Mildred Pratt died of breast cancer when Sharon was four years old. Pratt’s father played a major … Read MoreSharon Pratt Dixon Kelly (1944- )
Unita Blackwell, a civil rights activist and the first black female mayor in the state of Mississippi, was born the daughter of sharecropping parents in Coahoma County, Mississippi on March 18, 1933. She worked throughout the civil rights era urging and recruiting blacks to register … Read MoreUnita Blackwell (1933-2019)
Lee Patrick Brown, known as “The Father of Community Policing,” became the first African American Mayor of Houston, Texas in 1997. Brown was born to sharecropper parents Andrew and Zelma Brown in the town of Wewoka, Oklahoma in 1937. He received a B.A. in criminology … Read MoreLee P. Brown (1937- )
Best known as the first African American Mayor of Philadelphia, Woodrow Wilson Goode was born in 1938 into a family of tenant farmers near the town of Seaboard, North Carolina. Goode moved to Philadelphia with his family in 1954. In 1961, he received a B.A. … Read MoreW. Wilson Goode (1938- )
Kenneth Allen Gibson, the first African American mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was born in 1931 in the town of Enterprise, Alabama. He graduated from high school in Enterprise in 1950 and joined the U.S. Army as a civil engineer. He remained in the Army … Read MoreKenneth A. Gibson (1931- )
Best known for being the first black woman to be elected to Congress in the state of North Carolina, Eva Clayton, a Democrat, became known as a vigorous advocate for the concerns of African Americans and for social improvement. Eva Clayton was born in Savannah, … Read MoreEva Clayton (1934- )
Hulan Edwin Jack was born in 1905 in St. Lucia but migrated with his parents to the United States from British Guiana (now known as Guyana). The family settled in New York City. Jack, a high school dropout, eventually went to work for the Peerless … Read MoreHulan Edwin Jack (1905-1986)
On January 17, 2007, Sheila Dixon became the first woman mayor of Baltimore, after former Mayor Martin O’Malley was inaugurated as Maryland’s governor. Born on December 17, 1953, Dixon is a lifelong resident of Baltimore having grown up in the Ashburton neighborhood of West Baltimore. … Read MoreSheila Dixon (1953- )
