Last week’s elections resulted in historic firsts for a number of cities and states, as younger and more diverse candidates won in several mayoral and governor’s races. Now, a report from Georgia on another historic first as a college student has made history in one Atlanta-area city.

Political science student defeats incumbent mayor

Jayden Williams, a 22-year-old student at Clark Atlanta University, won Tuesday’s election to become the next Mayor of Stockbridge, Georgia. WSB-TV reported that Williams received 53.89% of the vote against 46.11% for incumbent Mayor Anthony Ford. That amounts to a victory of about 421 votes for Williams. The win will make Williams the youngest person to serve as mayor of the city, and the youngest Black person to be elected mayor of any location in Georgia, according to a post by Williams on his Facebook page. “I’m committed to building a better, stronger Stockbridge — and now that we’re elected, we’re going to do it together,” the mayor-elect said in his message to supporters.

Despite his young age, Williams has been active in politics in several capacities before winning Tuesday’s election. Williams is a political science major at Clark Atlanta and was the Freshman class president at the university, according to his campaign website. He has also twice been chosen as a White House Scholar. He has also worked with the Georgia NAACP and is the current Chairman of the Stockbridge Planning Committee. His opponent, outgoing Mayor Ford, is a retired Army Colonel who has lived in Stockbridge since 2010, where he became a city councilman, mayor pro tem, and now mayor.

Young candidates and people of color make history

The victory for Williams is part of a wave of young and diverse candidates winning elections on Tuesday. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani was elected to be the city’s first-ever Muslim and South Asian mayor, as well as its youngest mayor in over 100 years. Virginia elected its first-ever woman governor, while the cities of Albany and Syracuse in upstate New York elected Black women to lead them for the first time ever. And Detroit elected Mary Scheffield to be the first woman to ever lead that city, as well as the youngest Black woman ever elected as mayor of a major city in the United States.

Now, Williams joins the list of young leaders of color coming to power as a result of Tuesday’s vote. The result was a bit of a surprise for the mayor-elect. “I was shocked,” Williams said. “To beat out a two-time incumbent is really impressive for someone my age, and I said, ‘Wow, the people have spoken.” While his own youth makes his win unprecedented, Williams credits the younger voters who supported him for his win. “They kept saying, ‘Young people are not coming out to vote, young people are not coming out to vote,’ but that wasn’t a slight victory — that wasn’t 30 votes, that was almost 400+ votes.”

Tuesday was a big day for Black politicians and younger candidates as well, though few as young as Williams. He is set to graduate from Clark Atlanta this December and will be sworn in as mayor on January 1.

The post HBCU Student Elected Georgia’s Youngest Black Mayor Ever appeared first on Blavity.



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