Mary Sheffield Makes History As Detroit’s 1st Black Woman Mayor
Black Girl Power At The Polls: Mary Sheffield, Sharon Owens, And Dorcey Applyrs Make History As The 1st Black Women Mayors Of Detroit, Syracuse And Albany
Election Day 2025 saw some historic wins in favor of Democrats and if you open your window and stick your head out, you can practically hear the joyous rapture of political hope resonating out of cities and states all across America.
New York City has a new mayor. Proud Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani defeated both of his opponents in Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa with Cuomo, his closest competitor, losing by nearly 9%. The sufficient margin of victory speaks volumes about where the country is headed, as Americans’ dissatisfaction with the state of affairs continues to grow under the current Trump administration. Mamdani’s campaign took the nation by storm as he time again made his mission clear in interviews, podcasts, debates, and the most needle-moving social media content in modern political history.
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Democratic voters braced themselves for disappointment as a defense mechanism against soul-crushing elections of the past decade. However, last night, no defense was necessary. When Mayor-elect Mamdani took the stage in Brooklyn to address an elated room of euphoric supporters.
However, Mamdani’s win was not the only history made last night…
Detroit Elects First Woman Mayor In Mary Sheffield
Mary Sheffield, currently president of the Detroit City Council, won the 2025 mayoral election in Detroit, becoming the city’s first woman elected to the office. According to ClickOnDetroit, Sheffield defeated Solomon Kinloch Jr. by a landslide margin as she tallied 77% of the vote. The mayoral contest follows three-term mayor Mike Duggan’s decision not to seek reelection and his pivot toward a gubernatorial run. Sheffield’s campaigned focused on continuing Detroit’s economic recovery from bankruptcy, focusing on neighborhood development, public safety, and affordable housing. Her victory is seen as both a milestone for representation in Detroit and an indication of the type of candidate gaining support in American politics today.
We’d be remiss if we failed to mention the other major historic Democratic wins last night. In upstate New York, two Black women were voted in to break color barriers. Sharon Owens and Dorcey Applyrs were just elected as the first Black mayors of Syracuse and Albany.
America sent a clear message that bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, racism, economic bullying, and much of the foundational republican platform is not en vogue. Conservative politics doesn’t serve anyone but rich white people, and the voters have had enough. Change is here, and there’s even more on the way.
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