Kelly, Sharon Pratt

Source:

 African American National Biography

Kelly, Sharon Pratt

(30 Jan. 1944– ),

mayor of Washington, D.C., was born Sharon Pratt, the elder child of Carlisle Pratt, a superior court judge, and Mildred Petticord. When Sharon was four years old, her mother died of cancer. With her younger sister, Benaree, and their father, she went to live with her paternal grandmother and aunt. Some years later her father remarried, and Sharon lived with her father and stepmother. She attended Gage and Rudolph elementary schools and McFarland Junior High School and graduated from Roosevelt High School with honors. In 1965 she graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., with honors and a BA in Political Science; three years later she earned a JD from Howard's law school. While in law school, she married her first husband, onetime D.C. council member Arrington Dixon, and they had two daughters, Aimee Arrington Dixon and Drew Arrington Dixon. The couple divorced in 1982.

Sharon Pratt Kelly, the Washington mayor, with the heavyweight boxing champion Riddick Bowe (left) and Jesse Ferguson of Philadelphia, promoting the “Heavyweight Debate” on 24 March 1993. (AP Images.)

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Kelly began her legal career in 1970 as house counsel for the Joint Center for Political Studies in Washington, D.C., before entering private law practice with the legal firm of Pratt and Queen in 1971. From 1972 to 1976 she taught business law at the Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C., reaching the rank of full professor. After leaving Antioch School of Law, she served as a member of the general counsel's office at Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) from 1976 to 1979, when the company appointed her director of consumer affairs. In 1986 PEPCO appointed her as its vice president for public policy. In that capacity she worked to develop programs to assist low- and fixed-income residents of the District of Columbia. Her early work in public service also included serving as vice chairman of the District of Columbia's Law Revision Commission.

While representing Washington, D.C., on the Democratic National Committee from 1977 to 1990, Kelly was elected treasurer of the committee, serving from 1985 to 1989. Her close ties to the national Democratic Party furthered her local ambitions, and she launched her mayoral campaign with a lavish, well-attended party during the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Defying the odds, on 6 November 1990, Kelly became the first woman elected mayor of Washington, D.C., with a landside 86 percent of the vote. She was also the first African American woman to serve as the chief executive of a major American city.

Commentators credited Kelly's mayoral victory to her demonstrated commitment to the D.C. community over more than twenty years. With her positive campaign slogan of “Yes, We Will,” Kelly promised residents an “honest deal” that would restore the city to greatness by improving the quality of life for all of its people. She stunned observers when she promised to fire two thousand midlevel managers immediately, but many citizens were impressed with her eloquence and by the fact that she was an “outsider” with no apparent entanglements in local politics. Most important, she was not an ally of her predecessor as mayor, Marion S. Barry Jr.

In 1978 Barry had inherited a government that was already oversized and undermanaged. After nearly twelve years in office, having failed to tackle those problems and having been convicted of federal charges of cocaine possession, he chose not to run for reelection in 1990. Barry's downfall produced an upsurge of support for reforming the district's government, and Kelly, with her promise to “clean house” and her endorsement by the respected Washington Post, rode that political mood to easy victories in both the September Democratic primary and the November general election.

Solving the District of Columbia's myriad problems would not be so easy. The bureaucracy was regarded by many as indifferent to the citizens it was supposed to serve. Like other urban areas, the District of Columbia had a multitude of problems, such as underfinanced, weak public schools; urban economic decay; high unemployment; drug trafficking; and homelessness. Even more disturbing was a financial crisis that had resulted in the city's $300 million deficit at the end of the 1990 fiscal year. The U.S. Congress, as the city's managers, appropriated $100 million in congressional emergency funding for the following fiscal year. Kelly argued that a comprehensive overhaul of city government was also needed.

At first Kelly seemed determined to downsize government and inaugurated programs aimed at restructuring the bureaucracy by automation and retraining. Every category of crime in the District of Columbia declined during her term as mayor. She developed public-private partnerships to facilitate many of her reforms. Area businesses were encouraged to use their ingenuity to help develop programs to serve all of the city's citizens. These partnerships fostered more jobs and encouraged international trade ventures.

By all accounts, however, Kelly's first year was traumatic. Her grandmother died, and a trusted friend and adviser tragically died when a city ambulance went to the wrong address. At the same time, James Kelly, a businessman from New York City whom she had married at the end of her first year, never seemed comfortable in the public spotlight or in playing the supporting role of first spouse. Sharon Kelly was also never able to gain full control of a city still loyal to Barry, and during Kelly's second year in office, Barry backed an initiative to recall her from office. While the recall was unsuccessful, it forced Kelly to retreat from the tough reforms she had promised during her campaign. Kelly blamed Congress for Washington's continuing financial problems and then further alienated Congress by providing it with inaccurate and false information about the city's finances.

Kelly's criticism of Congress for the city's financial woes and her support for D.C. statehood alienated potential Democratic allies who controlled Congress. By 1993 she had also built a palatial office for herself outside the District Building, the usual location of district offices and agencies, and had put a makeup artist on the city payroll. Political observers increasingly saw such extravagance and her lack of political experience as a major problem, prompting some disillusioned voters to encourage Marion Barry's comeback. After Barry had served six months in prison for his cocaine conviction in 1992, he was elected to the city council. In 1994 he defeated Kelly in that year's mayoral election.

Kelly has received an NAACP Presidential Award, the Thurgood Marshall Award of Excellence, and the Mary McLeod Bethune–W. E. B. Du Bois Award from the Congressional Black Caucus. She has been honored for distinguished leadership by the United Negro College Fund and was the recipient of an award for distinguished service from the Federation of Women's Clubs, whose mission is to improve communities through volunteer service. Although her time in office was not as stellar as she had hoped or predicted it would be, Sharon Kelly will be remembered as the first native of Washington, D.C., and the first African American woman to be elected mayor of a major American city.

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