The UK’s First Elected Black Mayor is of Jamaican Descent
Last month, Marvin Rees, whose father is Jamaican, became the United Kingdom’s first directly elected black mayor.
With 63 percent of the vote, the 44-year-old etched his name in the record books, however Rees states he does not want to be known as the “black mayor”.
“I don’t want to be tagged as the black mayor. I’m a mayor for all of the city,” [Bristol] says Marvin Rees. “But my story of growing up here as a mixed-race kid does matter. There is something special about that,” stated Rees.
According to Rees, when his father arrived in the United Kingdom fifty years ago, he was greeted with signs saying: ‘No Irish, no blacks, no dogs.”
Back then the city had a boycott because blacks and Asians were not being employed.
Rees is the Founder and Programme Lead at The Bristol Leadership Programme, a two-week program that will help a dozen people annually from impoverished backgrounds to reach their aspirations.
He has worked in diverse areas throughout his career. He was a freelance journalist and radio presenter at BBC Radio Bristol. He was the Communications and Events Manager at Black Development Agency (now Phoenix Social Enterprise), an agency devoted to empowering individuals and communities through opportunities to work abroad.
Marvin Rees was employed in the city of Bristol as the Programme Manager for race equality in mental health issues at NHS Bristol
Rees is married with three children and lives in Easton in Bristol.
On 5 May 2016, Rees was elected Mayor of Bristol. He received 56,729 voted in the first round and 12,021 transfer votes in the second round, meaning that he received 68,750 votes overall.
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