Chokwe Antar Lumumba made history in 2017 when he became the youngest person to be elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. While in office, Mayor Lumumba has focused on expanding Jackson’s digital economic strength, making community oversight of police more transparent, improving the city’s infrastructure, and creating an education partnership to improve public schools. Lumumba won reelection in 2021 with almost seventy percent of the vote.
Mayor Lumumba is currently behind efforts to replace the entire water meter system in the city with a more modern and efficient system. It comes on the heels of the Mayor’s lawsuit against the previous company who installed the system, which led to the largest settlement in the history of the city: over $89 million. The Mayor has also remained firmly committed to worker rights in Jackson. When he came to office, city workers were on a furlough, but the Mayor has was able to both end the furlough and raise the salary of police officers out of the academy, the first raise in more than ten years. He has also been one of the only mayors in the country to eliminate health insurance premiums for all city workers, which also has resulted in a pay bump for employees.