Who Run the World? Girls!

• 

Ain’t no meme like one featuring a black woman. 

Especially if she is a mayor presiding over a city during the COVID-19 pandemic.  No one can match the maternalistic fortitude captured in those expressions that dare someone to cross the line and put her constituents in harms’ way.

One of our favorites is the “If ‘Don’t put one foot outside the door’ were a squad” featuring four powerhouses:

LaToya Cantrell who took the reigns in New Orleans as the first female to hold the office of mayor in 2018.

London Breed who in 2018 went from acting mayor to duly elected chief of San Francisco.

Keisha Lance Bottoms who built on the legacy of Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first woman and first black woman mayor, and was sworn in as head of one of the country’s major cities in 2018.

And “queen of the COVID-19 memes,” Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot who made history as the first openly gay African American woman to be elected mayor of a major city in 2019.

Touted as trailblazers in some circles and “rabble rousers” in others, these brave women balance budgets, manage administrations and keep their cities safe in the face of pandemics and everyday politics. 

They are the face of modern leadership. They are camera-ready, but don’t let the eyeliner and lipgloss fool you. These women along with their peers in other cities are determined, intelligent and bold. While they have it going on, let us not forget from whence this legacy of black female mayoral leadership began.

 The spark that started this slow and steady blaze was Lelia Foley, the first African American women elected mayor in the United States in 1973. This divorced mother of five and advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter served the small community of Taft, Oklahoma as mayor well into the 1980s.

Ms. Foley was joined by Doris Davis, the first black woman elected as chief executive of Compton, California in 1973 as well. 

Unita Blackwell, civil rights activists and advisor to six presidents, added further fuel to the flame when she was elected the first black woman mayor in Mississippi in 1976. Blackwell’s influence and dedication to the cause put the tiny town of Mayersville in the national spotlight.

Interestingly, as black females in the state of Mississippi have made gains in other municipal and county offices along with legislative and judicial leadership, those breaking barriers as mayor – like Blackwell – came from the Mississippi Delta.

In 2001, Emma Cooper-Harris was elected the first black and first female of the town of Anguilla while Yvonne Brown of Tchula was elected the first black Republican mayor in the state of Mississippi and the first in the United States. Later in 2006 Sheriel Perkins would be elected the first black and first female mayor of Greenwood, Miss. With the exception of Ms. Blackwell, the rest of these dynamic Mississippi moguls were succeeded by people who were not black females.

Even still, the sacrifices of “sick and tired of being sick and tired” Fannie Lou Hamer and other “rabble-rousers” have not been in vain. 

Romans 8:18 says “…our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” If part of the glory revealed is the growing number of black women serving as mayors of cities throughout the country, it justifies some of the physical and mental sufferings of those who paved the way. 

Ms. Hamer was not successful in her own congressional campaign, but she packed a powerful enough force that President Lyndon Johnson intentionally pre-empted coverage of her rousing speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.  

Ms. Hamer died shortly after the elections of Foley, Davis and Blackwell in the 1970s. She missed out on seeing these ladies flourish in the face of opposition. She likely would have been one of their top cheerleaders and advisors throughout their individual tenures. 

And if she were here to see the COVID-19 memes in 2020, she would probably chuckle to herself and say “umm hmm” as she liked and shared. “Look how far we’ve come.”

-Sojourner Justice