When “alderman emeritus” (as he has jokingly referred to himself) Mike McMillan was sworn in Tuesday as the city’s new license collector, he became the fourth African American to hold this position in the city of St. Louis. His black predecessors: Benny Goins, Larry Woodson and Billie Boykins.
In his campaign for the office, McMillan pitched himself as forging a north-south alliance with his immediate predecessor, Gregg F.X. Daly, who has upgraded to collector of revenue. Much more impressive is McMillan’s intrepid stumping for Alderman Lewis Reed in Reed’s bid for president of the Board of Aldermen. The cowardly “crabs in a barrel” play on this one would be for McMillan to do nothing to help a black political player obtain a more powerful position in city government than he possesses himself. Why help someone get ahead of him in line?
Here’s why: McMillan is sincerely interested in increasing representation for the black community in city government, and he is willing to take political risks in an effort to make that happen. To watch McMillan and Reed work together is enough to actually make a cynic a believer that a better, more inclusive St. Louis is possible. Now.