December 25, 2020
November 23, 2020
Inducted As A Contributor Into The Black Tennis Hall Of Fame Class Of 2012, The First And Only Black Mayor Of New York City, David N. Dinkins, Dies One Month After His Wife, Former First Lady Joyce Dinkins
In this Monday, Jan. 2, 1990, file photo, David Dinkins delivers his first speech as mayor of New York, in New York. Dinkins, New York City’s first African-American mayor, died Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. He was 93. (AP Photo/Frankie Ziths, File) |
NEW YORK (AP) — 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 race riot in Brooklyn, has died. He was 93.
Dinkins died Monday, the New York City Police Department confirmed. The department said officers were called to the former mayor’s home this evening. Initial indications were that he died of natural causes.
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, Rudolph 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.
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