Photo courtesy of Sharon Sayles Belton.
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Sharon Sayles Belton was born in 1951 in St. Paul, Minnesota but grew up in Richfield and Minneapolis, attending East Junior High School and Central High School. In 1983 she was elected to the Minneapolis City Council, where she worked closely with Mayor Donald Fraser and represented Minnesota at the Democratic National Convention in 1984. In 1993 she announced her plans to run for Mayor of Minneapolis, and was elected, becoming the first African-American and female mayor of Minneapolis. She ran and won again in 1997. The 1990s saw high crime rates for Minneapolis, and Sharon Sayles Belton is credited with reducing crime by 16% by 1998. She was involved with the redevelopment of downtown Minneapolis and helped bring businesses like Target to downtown Minneapolis. By the year 2000 both property values and the population in Minneapolis increased for the first time in years. Belton was known as a strong supporter of Minneapolis’ poorer citizens, but this caused her to become unpopular with Minneapolis’ more affluent citizens. In the 2001 DFL primary she was defeated by RT Rybak, who went on to become Minneapolis mayor.
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