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. 

BLACK WALL STREET: The Past, Present And Future Of Black Excellence

 

Black Tennis Hall Of Fame Sends Condolences To Its Founder, Dr. Dale G. Caldwell, Upon The Death Of His Father, Reverend Dr. Gilbert Haven Caldwell, Jr., A Family Man, Minister, And Civil Rights Foot Soldier (Video)

The Rev. Dr. Gilbert H. Caldwell first met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1958 while he was a student at Boston University. He actively participated in the 1963 March on Washington, the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, and the March in Boston protesting public school segregation, 1968 Poor People's Campaign. 

Dr. Caldwell was a graduate of North Carolina A. & T. State University and Boston University School of Theology. He received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity, D.D. degree, Dakota Wesleyan University, Mitchell, South Dakota. 

He was a retired United Methodist Church minister who has pastored churches in Boston, New Haven, Brooklyn, Harlem, Chester, Pennsylvania and Denver, Colorado. Dr. Caldwell has been a United Methodist Church District Superintendent in Boston and West Chester, Pennsylvania. 

As recently as June 7th, Dr. Caldwell spoke at a Black Lives Matter rally in Willingboro.  Dr. Caldwell stated that, “Our country is on the verge of dying if, in fact, it doesn’t stand up and become more just."