Former and current Black mayors from across the country offered a candid assessment of their personal experiences in public leadership this week, describing the job as a constant negotiation between racial perception, political pressure and public expectations.
“Being a Black mayor is a balancing act between white fear and Black expectations,” former St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said, framing the Tuesday panel discussion she hosted at Washington University.
The conversation brought together Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, former Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock, former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter III and former Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, who shared insights into how they communicate with constituents, prioritize policies and build coalitions.
A central theme of the discussion was authenticity — and the pressure Black leaders face to conform to expectations.
Hancock pointed to his tenure in Denver, where he became the city’s only African American mayor to win reelection, as an example of resilience and self-definition.
“The reality is that when I was campaigning for mayor the first time, I realized I felt much more comfortable when I was myself instead of the box your campaign team likes to put you in,” he said. “I felt like I was never Black enough, and I was too Black for some audiences.”
Realizing the importance of authenticity, Hancock said he made a decision to remain himself regardless of the audience.
The panelists also spent significant time discussing media coverage, misinformation and what they described as a decline of authentic journalism. They said misinformation remains a persistent challenge, often creating distractions and straining relationships with the public.
“I found out that we were not getting the type of coverage that the mayor now is getting,” Broome said. “It always had a slant to it.”
Her observation drew agreement from other panelists, who said such coverage can shape public perception in ways that are difficult to correct.
“It’s harder to disapprove a false story because the more you try to disprove it, the worse it looks,” Hancock said.
Those pressures, the mayors said, are layered on top of broader racial dynamics that influence how their leadership is judged.
They concluded with a call for Black communities to use their voices to drive change and to take greater control of their narratives by building and supporting their own media platforms.
Jones, who is serving this spring as the inaugural fellow in residence with WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity, hosted the panel as part of her campus work on civic leadership. The fellowship brings a civic leader to campus to engage students and the public through discussions and programming.
She will continue that work Tuesday, March 31, at 5 p.m. with a student-centered conversation, “Your Voice, Your City,” on how civic participation, activism and public feedback shape local governance. The discussion will draw on examples from her time in office, including responses to housing insecurity and citywide crises, and is presented in collaboration with the university’s Gephardt Institute.