Lawyer wins in St. Louis - St. Louis, Missouri, Mayor Freeman Bosley, Jr

Ebony, July, 1993 by Maurice Weaver

Native son begins new political era in Missouri city

ST. LOUIS is well-known for its trademark blues, but tears of pride and joy flowed during the rain-soaked, swearing-in ceremony of Freeman Bosley Jr. as the city's first Black mayor. This great-grandson of slaves defied the pollsters and political pundits to ride a groundswell of support in the Black community to a historic, come-from-behind victory that caught the nation by surprise.

Undaunted by the $1 million campaign war chest amassed by Thomas A. Villa, his former high-school counselor and the frontrunner in the Democratic primary, the 38-year-old lawyer campaigned door-to-door in Black, White and racially-mixed communities, usually accompanied by his wife, Darlynn, a teacher, and their 2-year-old daughter, Sydney.

"The key to my victory was having a wife who was supportive enough to allow me to go through all this," says Bosley. "It puts a lot of stress on a family to run for an office of this magnitude. So just having Darlynn there working on the campaign and managing phone banks has been extremely important."

The mayor's campaign theme of racial harmony, combatting crime, improving public schools and allocating millions for neighborhood redevelopment resonated throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. Despite a controversial, last-minute change in voting procedures on the day of the primary election, energized voters in the Black community, who constitute 47% of the city's heavily Democratic population of 396,000, dared to make history. In a four-way race, Bosley got 67 percent of the vote.

"The significance of my victory is that people want change. They want a new direction," says Bosley, a former city Democratic Party chairman and active supporter of Bill Clinton's presidential candidacy.

An additional boon for St. Louis' Blacks is Bosley's automatic appointment to the city's influential five-member Board of Estimate, which draws up the city's budget. His running mate, comptroller Virvus Jones, was reelected, bringing the total to three Blacks holding key budgetary positions.

What makes the new mayor popular among his peers and the electorate is an uncanny ability to win over an audience with his charm off the campaign trail. He finds solace fishing with friends. To relax, he enjoys watching action movies.

"My daughter likes 101 Dalmations and I've seen it 100 times. I know Pinocchio by line and verse," he jokes.

Bosley grew up in a strong political family headed by his grandfather ("a very gutsy guy with fire in his belly").

His father, Freeman Bosley Sr., a long-time alderman in the city's Third Ward on the north side, was defeated in a bid for the mayor's seat in 1985.

Bosley graduated from Central High School in 1972, and was active in politics while an undergraduate and a law student at St. Louis University. In 1982, Bosley won the office of clerk of the Circuit Courts, a job with 200 employees and a $40 million budget.

Now as the first Black mayor of the 34th largest city in the U.S., Bosley faces the same seemingly untractable problems that burden most urban centers: drugs, poor housing, lack of jobs and an overburdened health care system.

Despite his pressing problems Bosley remains hopeful about the future of St. Louis: "We're going to expand our convention center; it will be the fourth largest convention space in the country. We're building a new football stadium, and riverboat gambling is coming on line this year. St. Louis is getting ready to take off; this will be the place to be."