Biracial Man, 24, Goes From Homeless to Mayor

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

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What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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March 1, 2012

By Claudio E. Cabrera, The Root

Svante Myrick gives an interview after his Democratic Party primary election victory.

Svante Myrick, a previously homeless 24-year-old, is the youngest mayor ever elected in the city of Ithaca, N.Y., according to NBC News.

The son of a white mother and black father, Myrick was raised by his mother with help from his grandparents in upstate New York. His family was homeless at numerous times throughout his youth. Myrick and his three siblings would pool money from after-school jobs to buy clothes, feed themselves and help keep their house lights, according to Syracuse.com.

His story has endeared him to many residents in the small community and earned him comparisons to President Obama, which he tends to shy away from, although he says he was inspired by him. “Well, if this, you know, guy with that name and those ears can do it, then a guy with this name and these ears can do it,” Myrick said.

A graduate of Cornell University who previously served on the Ithaca City Council, Myrick took over City Hall on Jan. 1 after he won the election on Nov. 8 with 54 percent of the vote, winning 18 out of 18 districts in a landslide.

Learn more about Myrick.

More stories like this.

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