Detroit ― one of the country's Blackest cities ― finally joined Los Angeles , Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and others in elevating its first Black woman to be mayor, with Sheffield defeating Solomon Kinloch 77%-22.5% in Tuesday's election, according to the unofficial returns.
"I don't take for granted that I stand on the shoulders of so many warrior women who have prayed, who have sacrificed, just for us to be here in this moment, a torch carried from one generation to the next," Sheffield said Tuesday night after her win.
"And so I say to every little girl watching tonight and to every child in this city, never doubt yourself."
Sheffield, 38, is part of a rising number of Black female mayors elected to lead large U.S. cities in recent years, a development that signals their growing electoral strength and acceptance in executive posts after generations of being relegated to more supporting roles in politics.
“To see Black women leading major cities in the United States is inspiring, it's exciting, and it's about damn time,” said Kim Janey, who became Boston’s first woman and first Black mayor in 2021.
“Black women have lived at that intersection of systemic inequities, bring a lens of problem solving, of stick-to-it-ness, of resilience and of getting things done in a way that others haven't,” Janey added. “I'm convinced it makes this nation better, stronger.”
But once in office, these women said they faced bias and stereotypes because of their gender and race, and felt they were unfairly held to higher standards than their predecessors. They had their credibility and experience questioned, and in some cases, their physical appearance or tone of voice scrutinized, according to the mayors and researchers who studied their tenures.
Black female mayors in the Midwest have also faced uneven success in winning reelection, with Chicago's Lori Lightfoot , Toledo's Paula Hicks-Hudson and St. Louis' Tishaura Jones each defeated after one term.
“Some people are still living in an era where they believe a woman, especially an African American , represents less-than leadership, which is quite the contrary,” said Sharon Weston Broome , who was the first woman mayor-president of the Baton Rouge city and parish in Louisiana from 2017 until January.
“We are in a time where we still are trying to normalize female leadership at every level of government.”
Sheffield might be able to deflect some of the credibility and trustworthiness questions due to her long tenure with the Detroit City Council , her visibility in the media and her family’s legacy in the city, political experts said. She also presumably enters office having already established relationships with the state Legislature and the governor’s office that she can build on.
“I think she's going to be able to maximize that and, working with partners in Lansing, get Detroit to the next level,” said Ravi Perry, a professor of political science and an expert in Black politics at Howard University.
“Detroit still has some challenges with affordable housing, some climate issues. But it's really a ripe opportunity for her ― and to carry the banner of the Midwest in the national media,” added Perry, a native of Toledo who graduated from the University of Michigan .
“It will be interesting to see how she's able to write a new narrative for Black women mayors there."
Historic Firsts
Sheffield pointed out in her victory speech that "throughout Detroit's 324-year history, 75 mayors have led this city; not one has been a woman. But tonight, Detroit, we know that changes."
Once Sheffield is sworn in, Black women mayors will head nine of the 100 cities with the largest populations in the United States , according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics(CAWP) at Rutgers University .
That should bring the total number of Black female mayors serving at the same time to the same level as it was in early 2023. Nine is more than double the count of four Black women serving in mayorships a decade ago in 2015, according to CAWP's data.
In terms of history, Sheffield will be part of a tiny cohort: CAWP reports just 26 Black women have risen to mayor of these 100 cities, with the first two elected back in 1987 ― Lottie Shackelford of Little Rock, Ark. , and Carrie Saxon Perry of Hartford, Conn. All have been Democrats.
New York City is the glaring holdout, with no woman ever having served as mayor of the Big Apple. Zohran Mamdani was elected Tuesday as NYC’s first Muslim mayor.
Women in general and Black women in particular have fared better in getting elected to legislative posts, while executive positions, "where the buck stops," have been a challenge, CAWP Director Debbie Walsh said.
No woman has served as president, and no Black woman has been elected governor of a state. In Virginia , Republican Winsome Earle-Sears , who was aiming to become the first Black woman elected governor nationally, lost Tuesday to Democrat Abigail Spanberger, the first woman ever elected to lead the commonwealth.
"The field of mayors is one that I find very encouraging. It's true that we have seen women who served at that level not getting reelected, but we also have seen them go on and have good careers," Walsh said.
"These women making it also opens the doors for other women and other Black women ― to show women candidates and women who are thinking about running for these kinds of positions that, in fact, it is possible."
It probably helped Sheffield that she ran on the heels of the historic presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, the first Black woman elected vice president. And Michigan voters are accustomed to women in executive leadership roles with Gretchen Whitmer in the governor's mansion since 2019 and former Gov. Jennifer Granholm having previously led the state for eight years, Walsh said.
Women also hold the offices of attorney general and secretary of state in Michigan. In Washington, D.C. , Michigan's U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain of Bruce Township serves as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. And the state has been represented by a female U.S. senator for the last 25 years.
Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University studying women mayors, said many of the Black women candidates running in historically male-dominated cities come in with "impeccable" credentials, local leadership experience, fundraising chops and ties to community organizations.
"The question remains, how do people look at those credentials and don't think this person is capable of leading?" said Brown, who is also chair of women and gender studies at Georgetown.
"Anyone else who might have had these credentials are seen as perfect to be an executive."
Mayoral Governance
The Detroit News spoke with four Black women around the country who formerly served as mayors. They said they brought a new style of leadership to the cities they led with an emphasis on collaboration, inclusiveness and civic engagement.
Like many mayors, Black female mayors have focused on economic growth, education and crime but also on how to better support families through efforts with childcare, early childhood education, domestic violence, substance abuse treatment and reentry programs.
"Poverty, childcare, addiction ― that's not something that's necessarily on your mayoral checklist," said Karen Freeman-Wilson, the first woman and Black person to serve as mayor of Gary, Indiana .
"But a lot of the women I've known engaged on this because when you live in the community, when you're a part of the community, you see it. You see it at church, you sit in the grocery store, and so you're not going to ignore that."
Mayors must be focused on both the long-term vision for a city and the daily crises that emerge, requiring multitasking skills that women largely have developed.
"Black women tend to be empathetic, they're collaborative, they're innovative and creative, if not by choice, by necessity," said Janey, the former Boston mayor who is now president and CEO of Economic Mobility Pathways , a nonprofit dedicated to fighting poverty. "They often are community-centered. They're always thinking about the collective and not so much themselves."
They were also underestimated, insulted and, at times, ignored. Brown, the Georgetown professor, heard from Black women mayors accused of being "DEI" or diversity, equity and inclusion hires who didn't earn their spot.
"I can recount any number of times when I went into a room to negotiate an agreement or a deal, and folks addressed their comments to the men in the room who worked for me, as opposed to me," said Freeman-Wilson, who is now president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League.
"And I heard a lot of comments like, 'How do I know you're telling the truth?' And I'm thinking to myself, I'm pretty sure you would not have said that to a man."
In an 2023 interview after she lost reelection, Lightfoot in Chicago told The New York Times that as a person of color, “I’m always going to be viewed through a different lens, that the things I do and say, that the toughness that I exhibit, is viewed as divisive, that I’m the mean mayor, that I can’t collaborate with anyone.”
Lightfoot, a graduate of the University of Michigan , last year joined UM as a visiting professor in the Ford School of Public Policy to co-teach a strategic public policy consulting class.
Sharon Pratt said she was so overlooked when she ran to be mayor of Washington, D.C. , in 1990 that she wasn't included in the polling at the time, despite her positions as treasurer of the national Democratic Party and as an executive for Potomac Electric Power Co.
With a campaign motto to "clean house," she won a "come from behind" victory in 1991 to succeed Mayor Marion Barry , who had been arrested and charged with drug possession. Pratt was the first woman mayor of D.C., and the first African American mayor of any major U.S. city.
"I found it a little surprising how hard it was to establish the authenticity and compelling nature of the candidacy," Pratt told The News. "When people want reform, they want a sense of confidence that you're going to bring integrity to it. That is one issue where women do have a bit of an advantage."
Pratt predicted that Sheffield will encounter some of the same systemic barriers that she and other Black female mayors did, but residents will still expect her to deliver on services and quality of life.
Mayor Mike Duggan , a White politician who led Detroit for nearly 12 years, harnessed business power in a way that elevated hope for "resuscitating" economic prosperity in Detroit after years of decline, the former D.C. mayor noted.
"Can Sheffield, as a woman of color, have the same benefit of the doubt, the same credibility with the business community? I don't know," Pratt said.
"I came in when there was a financial crisis in the city. I think, appropriately, people want you to pull off a miracle. ... But it is utterly impossible for an elected official to pull off a miracle in terms of transforming the economy."
Fall from a 'Glass Cliff'
Expectations being set so high for women in executive leadership can make it tougher for them to hit their goals or win reelection, leading to greater scrutiny and a so-called "glass cliff," CAWP's Walsh said.
"When they don't quite get there to meet that high standard, the fall is high, it is real. There's less leeway given," Walsh said.
Sharon D. Wright Austin, a political scientist at the University of Florida who has studied mayors since the 1990s, said she found a number of Black women mayors who lost reelection campaigns were defeated by men who emphasized crime rates, "even in cities where crime had improved under the Black women."
Austin, the author of the book "Political Black Girl Magic" about the rise of Black female mayors, blamed gender stereotypes and voter perceptions that women are weak on crime, law and order.
"It's as if we still have the assumption that men are better at certain types of issues like crime," she said. "It's also something that impacted Kamala Harris in the presidential election last year."
Broome of Baton Rouge placed herself in the category of female mayors who lost to a man tapping voter dissatisfaction with crime. She was ousted in December after two terms and 36 years in elected office by Republican political newcomer Sid Edwards.
"We were noted for the work that we were doing," said Broome, the former president of the National League of Cities . "They really beat me over the head about crime."
Crime could become an issue for Sheffield in a different way if President Donald Trump were to escalate his use of the National Guard and deploy troops to Detroit, as he's done in other Democratic-led cities.
"It's just a matter of time before he targets Detroit ," Austin said. "If she accepts his help because she thinks it would help crime, a lot of the residents won't like that."
Janey agreed that Sheffield might become a target of Trump because of her identity, as he similarly attacked Lightfoot and scrapped with former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms during his first term.
Sheffield should pay that no mind, Janey said: Just do the work and bring others along with you.
"I never really wanted that 'tough' skin, because then it's hard to penetrate your shell, and you're not listening," Janey said.
"But you do need that oily skin so some of the nonsense can just roll off your back. And it will come."
©2025 The Detroit News. Visit detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
