Contents
Foreword by Pearl K. Dowe
Preface and Acknowledgments
Part I: Introduction
1. An Opportunity for Us to Rise: Winning and Governing in Cities / Sharon D. Wright Austin
Part II: Black Female Mayors in Small and Medium-Sized Cities
2. Let This “Little Girl” Come In and Clean It Up: Deirdre Waterman of Pontiac and Karen Weaver of Flint / Sharon D. Wright Austin and Marcella Mulholland
3. Progress Comes at a Price: Aja Brown and Acquanetta Warren Govern California Cities / Precious Hall and Sharon D. Wright Austin
4. We Can’t Turn a Blind Eye to Change: Mayor Lovely Warren of Rochester, New York / Angela K. Lewis-Maddox and Stephanie Y. Pink-Harper
5. Others May Not Be Able to See What I See Now: Black Female Mayors in Florida / Ashley Robertson Preston, LaRaven Temoney, and Kelly Briana Richardson
6. There’s No Job Too Big to Benefit from a Small-Town Person’s Perspective: African American Female Mayors in the Mississippi Delta / Emmitt Y. Riley III, Minion K. C. Morrison, and Yolanda Jones
Part III: Black Female Mayors in Major Metropolitan Cities
7. A Woman Whose Father Didn’t Graduate from High School Can Become This City’s First Female African American Mayor: Mayor Vi Lyles of Charlotte / Andrea Benjamin
8. When We Ignore the Will of the People, the People Lose: The Improbable Election of Lori Lightfoot in Chicago / Valerie C. Johnson
9. I’d Rather Go Down Fighting Than Stand as a Loser: Atlanta Mayors Shirley Franklin and Keisha Lance Bottoms / Fatemeh Shafiei and Sharon D. Wright Austin
10. Baltimore Must Develop an Inclusive Solution That Does Not Leave Anyone Out: Black Female Mayors in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter / Jamil Scott, Nadia E. Brown, and Christina Greer
11. The Frustrations Have Been Festering for Twelve Years: Washington, DC, Mayors Sharon Pratt and Muriel Bowser / Linda Trautman
12. Leadership Is Not about Winning a Popularity Contest: Louisiana’s Black Female Mayors / Sharon D. Wright Austin, Taisha Saintil, and Lauren King
13. If You Only Knew What I Had to Go Through to Get Here: London Breed, Political Black Womanism, and San Francisco Politics / James Lance Taylor
Part IV: Conclusion
14. You Have to Work Together: Lessons Learned from Black Female Mayoral Experiences / Sharon D. Wright Austin
Contributors
Index