Cavalier Johnson makes history as Milwaukee's first Black mayor
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Cavalier Johnson made history Tuesday when he was elected Milwaukee’s first Black mayor.
“This city, for the first time in our 176-year history, has elected its first Black mayor. We did it,” Johnson told his supporters.
The 35-year-old Democrat and former alderman trounced his challenger, Alderman Bob Donovan, with a 72% to 28% margin in a special election for an abbreviated two-year term, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports—in a predominantly white city, to boot.
In 2016, Johnson was elected as an alderman to the city’s Common Council and was elected council president in 2020. He took over as acting mayor last December when Mayor Tom Barrett resigned to take a position in President Biden’s administration as the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, according to the Journal Sentinel.
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CNN reports that Johnson’s campaign focused on public safety with a plan “to combat reckless driving and for safer Milwaukee streets.”
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In his victory remarks, Johnson admitted that “we’ve got a lot to do,” and talked of jobs, crime, and restoring a healthy relationship with the residents and government, the Journal Sentinel reports.
“At the local level, we don’t control gun law. So we need our partners at the state level to be here with us. To work on that issue to make sure that guns don’t end up in the hands of people who would cause death, harm, and destruction,” Johnson said Wednesday when he spoke with reporters.
With the election of the city’s first millennial mayor, Milwaukee Public Schools senior student Dulce Medina told WTMJ-TV she feels his election offers a sense of opportunity. “I think he just opened up a doorway for us. He took the step for us, and we are going to make a leap. … I think we are going to do great things after high school.”
Medina’s sentiments reverberated in Johnson’s speech Tuesday following his historic win.
“I hope that all the Black and Brown boys and girls who wake up tomorrow, and they get ready for school—they do so knowing that we have shown here today—that no matter where you live, or how much or how little your parents make, and no matter the color of your skin—that in Milwaukee, there’s a place for you too,” Johnson said.
As The Root reports, Johnson’s victory follows another historic win as Ed Gainey, a former lawmaker in Pittsburgh, became that city’s first Black mayor in more than 200 years.
According to the U.S. Census, both Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are predominantly white. Milwaukee is 42% white and 38.8% Black and Pittsburgh is 66.4% white and 23% Black.
Johnson will be officially certified as mayor on Apr. 13.