This is the first comprehensive treatment of the complex phenomenon of African-American mayors in America's major urban centers. Offering a diverse portrait of leadership, conflict, and almost insurmountable obstacles, this volume assesses the political alliances that brought black mayors to office as well as the accomplishments and challenges that marked their careers. Facing the intractable problems of decaying inner cities, white flight, a dwindling tax base, violent crime, and diminishing federal support for social programs, many African-American mayors also encountered hostility from their own parties, city councils, and police departments. Mayors profiled include Carl B. Stokes (Cleveland), Richard G. Hatcher (Gary), 'Dutch' Morial (New Orleans), Harold Washington (Chicago), Tom Bradley (Los Angeles), Marion Barry (Washington, D.C.), David Dinkins (New York City), Coleman Young (Detroit), and a succession of black mayors in Atlanta (Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, and Bill Campbell). David R. Colburn is the author of "Southern Businessmen and Desegregation", "Racial Change and Community Crisis" and other books. Jeffrey S. Adler is the author of "Yankee Merchants and the Making of the West".