A People’s Mayor

A People’s Mayor

On June 6, Chokwe Antar Lumumba won 93 percent of the vote to become mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, a city that is 80 percent black, with 31 percent of its population living in poverty, is the capital of a state that is overwhelmingly governed by white Republicans. In these respects, it is not entirely unique among red-state cities. But it is unique in electing a mayor like Lumumba, son of Chokwe Lumumba, who served for less than a year as mayor of Jackson until his death in 2014. Both men ran on their “People’s Platform,” a plan to bring about economic self-determination in the city by promoting cooperative businesses and participatory democracy. This photo was taken in May by photographer Ruddy Roye, a Brooklyn-based documentary photographer. —Editors