Stokes, Carl Burton

Impact on the world

Won election as Cleveland's mayor in 1967 with just 50.5% of the vote against the grandson of a former U.S. president, becoming the first African American elected mayor of a major American city; his administration's response to a 1969 industrial river fire helped spark the national environmental justice movement, and he later became one of the few American politicians to serve in all three branches of government, also working as a state legislator and municipal judge.

Life & background

Raised in a Cleveland public housing project after his father's death when he was two, Stokes dropped out of high school to work in a foundry before serving in the Army, later earning his diploma and law degree with help from the GI Bill. After narrowly losing a 1965 mayoral bid, he won in 1967 with just 1,600 more votes than his opponent, Seth Taft, grandson of President William Howard Taft, becoming the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city. As mayor, he opened city government jobs to Black residents and women and required city contractors to demonstrate nondiscriminatory hiring practices, while his 'Cleveland: Now!' urban revitalization program drew scrutiny after some of its funds were found to have gone toward groups involved in 1968's Glenville riots. He gained international attention for his response to the Cuyahoga River catching fire in 1969 due to industrial pollution, a moment later credited as foundational to the environmental justice movement's focus on how pollution disproportionately harms low-income and minority communities. After leaving office, he became New York City's first Black television news anchor, winning an Emmy, before returning to Cleveland as a municipal judge and later serving as U.S. Ambassador to the Seychelles under President Clinton; his brother Louis Stokes served 30 years in Congress.

Sources

1. Cleveland Civil Rights Trail; National Park Service; Encyclopædia Britannica; Case Western Reserve Encyclopedia of Cleveland History