David Dinkins

• Born: July 10, 1927
• Birthplace: Trenton, New Jersey
• Died: November 23, 2020
• Place of death: New York, NY

Politician

Dinkins became New York City’s first African American mayor after a career as a lower-level state and city official, during which he developed a reputation as a champion of racial justice. He took office at a time when racial tension and economic turmoil plagued the city and shaped his administration.

Area of achievement: Government and politics

Early Life

David Norman Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1927. He attended local public schools and was raised principally by his mother after her divorce when Dinkins was a child. With the onset of the Great Depression, Dinkins’s mother relocated the family to Harlem, New York, where she worked as a domestic. When he reached junior high school, Dinkins moved back to Trenton to live with his father.

After graduating from high school, Dinkins enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late stages of World War II to avoid being drafted and assigned arbitrarily. Better to enlist and get the best possible combat preparation with the Marine Corps, Dinkins believed, than be drafted and potentially receive second-rate training. He served from 1945 to 1946 and was honorably discharged without seeing combat, remaining in the United States for his brief tour of duty. During training, Dinkins experienced racial oppression as the Marines, like all other branches of the military, maintained segregated training and combat units. He also experienced Jim Crow racial segregation when he attended boot camp in North Carolina.

After the war, Dinkins, at the urging of his parents, enrolled at Howard University with financial assistance provided by the G.I. Bill. Dinkins graduated in 1950 with honors in his major, mathematics. He briefly attended Rutgers University to further study math but quickly changed direction. In 1953, he enrolled in Brooklyn Law School. Dinkins graduated in 1956 and opened a private law practice. He soon joined the George Washington Carver Democratic Club of New York, which served as a training ground for young African American activists and political aspirants. While a member, Dinkins began forging alliances with other future political leaders such as Charles Rangel. In 1965, he won his first elected office: a seat in the New York State Assembly.

Life’s Work

New York mayor Abraham Beam believed Dinkins had a promising political future. Beam offered Dinkins the office of deputy mayor of New York, but charges that Dinkins had not paid his income taxes for several years scuttled the opportunity. Allegations stemming from tax evasion in this period would plague Dinkins for the remainder of his political career.

In the state assembly, Dinkins became a leader in the push for financial assistance for impoverished citizens. He helped to create Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK), a program that offered both financial and tutorial aid to poor youths. At his law firm, which he ran until 1975, Dinkins continued his crusade for economic and racial justice by taking cases for indigent clients. His credentials as a social reformer led to his selection as head of New York City’s Board of Elections, a position he held from 1972 to 1973. While in the post, Dinkins worked to encourage African Americans to register to strengthen their political voice. In 1975, Dinkins became city clerk, a position he held until 1985, when he won election as Manhattan borough president. With his reputation growing, Dinkins turned his attention to the coveted mayor’s office then held by three-term incumbent Democrat Ed Koch. Koch’s often abrasive style had at first won him the admiration of New Yorkers, but as the city’s fiscal health began to erode and violence and drug abuse increased, the mayor became vulnerable. Dinkins seized a golden opportunity.

In 1989, Dinkins announced his candidacy in New York’sDemocratic mayoral primary. Much to the shock of political pundits, Dinkins defeated the incumbent Koch. During a time of social unrest, New York Democrats were drawn to Dinkins’s calming rhetoric and promise of an inclusive administration. At the time, winning the Democratic primary in New York usually was tantamount to wining the election, but in 1989, the Republican Party fielded a strong candidate who proved far more competitive than many expected, the famous prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani.

Despite a stiff challenge, Dinkins won the general election and inherited a city teeming with troubles. Campaign promises to bridge racial and ethnic divides soon foundered as racial conflict continued unabated, culminating in the 1991 Crown Heights riots, in which African American and Jewish New Yorkers fought in the streets of Brooklyn. The potent and cheap cocaine derivative known as crack also decimated the city, spurring a crime wave. Despite hiring a significant number of new police officers, Dinkins failed to alleviate perceptions that the city was overrun with criminals. Making matters worse, the city was mired in a deep recession, although Dinkins had turned its staggering $500 million budget deficit into a surplus during his term. Change for the better was taking place, but it occurred at too slow a pace for the struggling city. In his 1993 reelection bid, Dinkins lost to Giuliani.

After leaving the mayoral office, Dinkins served as a professor of professional practice at the Columbia University School of International Public Affairs. He also hosted the radio show Dialogue with Dinkins from 1994 to 2013, and sat on several boards of directors, including for the US Tennis Association, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, the Jazz Foundation of America, and the Posse Foundation. He published the memoir A Mayor's Life: Governing New York's Gorgeous Mosaic, written with Peter Knobler, in 2013.

Dinkins died at his home in Manhattan on November 23, 2020, at the age of ninety-three.

Significance

As New York’s 106th mayor and the first African American to hold the post, Dinkins worked to increase representation of minorities and women in city government. Once out of office, Dinkins continued the crusading work that had typified his political life. He accepted an appointment to Columbia University as a professor at the Center for Urban Research and Policy in 1994 and remained active in the fight for racial and economic equality. He served on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations such as Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) and the Friends of Harlem Hospital. Dinkins also hosted a popular New York public-affairs radio program, “Dialogue with Dinkins.”

Bibliography

Kirtzman, Andrew. Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City. HarperCollins, 2001. Offers important insight into Giuliani’s two campaigns against Dinkins as well as into Giuliani’s efforts as New York mayor.

Levitt, Leonard. NYPD Confidential: Power and Corruption in the Country’s Greatest Police Force. Thomas Dunne Books, 2009. Although it covers many decades, Levitt’s book devotes considerable attention to Dinkins’s often difficult relationship with the city’s police force.

McFadden, Robert D. "David N. Dinkins, New York’s First Black Mayor, Dies at 93." The New York Times, 25 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/nyregion/david-dinkins-dead.html. Accessed 28 Apr. 2021.

McLaurin, Melton A. The Marine of Montford Point: America’s First Black Marines. University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Explores the rich history of the black Marine unit that Dinkins joined in 1945.

Rich, Wilbur C. David Dinkins and New York City Politics: Race, Images, and the Media. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Insightful analysis of how the media helped shape political issues in New York and ultimately undermined Dinkins’s administration.

Shapiro, Edward. Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot. Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2006. Shapiro offers an even-handed account of the racial violence that rocked New York City during Dinkins’s administration.