The Honorable David N. Dinkins was the first and only African-American Mayor of New York City. Mayor Dinkins instituted “Safe Streets, Safe City: Cops and Kids,” a comprehensive criminal justice plan that expanded youth and education programs, expanded the police force, and launched a decades-long reduction in crime. His administration oversaw more housing rehabilitation than in the two terms of his successor. He initiated the revitalization of Times Square, was responsible for cultural staples such as Fashion Week, Restaurant Week, and Broadway on Broadway, and secured an unprecedented agreement to keep the U.S. Open Tennis Championships in New York City for 99 years, which generated tremendous financial benefits.
Mayor Dinkins endured considerable backlash and even physical threats when he defied organizers and marched with an LGBTQ Irish group in the 1991 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. This set a precedent, and organizers finally permitted an LGBTQ group to officially join the parade in 2015.
In 1994, Mayor Dinkins joined Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) as a Professor in the Practice of Public Policy. He serves on SIPA’s Advisory Board and hosts the Annual David N. Dinkins Leadership & Public Policy Forum, which welcomed Congressman John Lewis as its 20th Anniversary Keynote Speaker in 2017. In 2003, SIPA established the David N. Dinkins Professorship Chair in the Practice of Urban & Public Affairs. The David N. Dinkins Archives and Oral History Project at the Columbia University Libraries was opened in 2015. Also in 2015, the iconic Municipal Building was renamed the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building.
Mayor Dinkins remains active with a variety of civic and charitable organizations that assist young people including the Association to Benefit Children, Children’s Health Fund, Coalition for the Homeless, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and Posse Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Advisory Board of the International African American Museum and is on the steering committee of the Association for a Better New York and the New York Urban League’s Advisory Council. He is a founding member of the Black & Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus of New York State and The One Hundred Black Men. He is a former vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors, Member-at-Large of the Black Leadership Forum, chairman emeritus of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, Honorary Life Trustee of the Community Service Society of New York, Honorary Trustee of the Friends of Harlem Hospital, and Lifetime Member of the NAACP. In 2013, he published his memoir, A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic, chronicling his career as a devoted public servant and proud New Yorker.
Mr. Dinkins graduated with honors from Howard University in 1950 with a B.S. in mathematics and received an LL.B. from Brooklyn Law School in 1956. He is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal for his service as a Montford Point Marine in the United States Marine Corps during World War II.
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 10, 1927, Mr. Dinkins was a long-time resident of Harlem and still resides in New York City with his wife of 63 years, Joyce Burrows Dinkins. They have two children – David Jr. and Donna Dinkins Hoggard, and two grandchildren – Jamal Hoggard and Kalila Dinkins Hoggard.