Royal Oak Tribune

New York City’s first Black mayor, David Dinkins, dies at 93

- By Deepti Hajela

NEW YORK » David Dinkins, who broke barriers as New York City’s first African American mayor but was doomed to a single term by a soaring murder rate, stubborn unemployme­nt and his mishandlin­g of a riot in Brooklyn, has died. He was 93.

Dinkins’ death Monday was confirmed by his assistant at Columbia University, where he taught after leaving office, and by Mayor Bill de Blasio, his onetime staffer. The former mayor’s death came just weeks after the death of his wife, Joyce, who died in October at the age of 89.

Dinkins, a calm and courtly figure with a penchant for tennis and formal wear, was a dramatic shift from both his predecesso­r, Ed Koch, and his successor, Rudy Giuliani — two combative and often abrasive politician­s in a city with a world- class reputation for impatience and rudeness.

In his inaugural address, he spoke lovingly of New York as a “gorgeous mosaic of race and religious faith, of national origin and sexual orientatio­n, of individual­s whose families arrived yesterday and generation­s ago, coming through Ellis Island or Kennedy Airport or on buses bound for the Port Authority.”

But the city he inherited had an ugly side, too.

AIDS, guns and crack cocaine killed thousands of people each year. Unemployme­nt soared. Homelessne­ss was rampant. The city faced a $1.5 billion budget deficit.

Dinkins’ low-key, considered approach quickly came to be perceived as a flaw. Critics said he was too soft and too slow.

“Dave, Do Something!” screamed one New York Post headline in 1990, Dinkins’ first year in office.

Dinkins did a lot at City Hall. He raised taxes to hire thousands of police officers. He spent billions of dollars revitalizi­ng neglected housing. His administra­tion got the Walt Disney Corp. to invest in the cleanup of then-seedy Times Square.

In recent years, he’s gotten more credit for those accomplish­ments, credit that de Blasio said Dinkins should have always had. De Blasio, who worked in Dinkins’ administra­tion, named Manhattan’s Municipal Building after his mentor in October 2015.

“David Dinkins believed that we could be better, believed we could overcome our divisions,” de Blasio said at a news briefing Tuesday. “He showed us what it was like to be a gentleman, to be a kind person no matter what was thrown at him. And a lot was thrown at him.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton noted that Dinkins took office during a time of racial discord following the 1989 shooting death of Yusuf Hawkins, a Black teenager who was attacked by a gang of youths in a predominan­tly white Brooklyn neighborho­od.

 ?? ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO ?? David Dinkins delivers his first speech as mayor of New York.
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO David Dinkins delivers his first speech as mayor of New York.

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