Sharon Sayles Belton
mayor
Personal Information
Born May 13, 1951, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Education: Macalester College (St. Paul, MN), 1969-73; Program for Senior Executives, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1986.
Memberships: National Coalition Against Sexual Assault (president, 1981-83); Board of Directors, American Bar Association; National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors; U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Public Education; Harriet Tubman Shelter for Battered Women (co-founder); Minnesota Minority Education Program (co- founder), Success By Six (co-founder); Way To Grow; One-to-One mentorship program, Minneapolis Initiative Against Racism; Search Institute; Bush Foundation.
Career
Parole officer, Minnesota Department of Corrections, 1973-83; associate director, Minnesota Program for Victims of Sexual Assault, 1983-84; member, City Council, 8th Ward, Minneapolis, 1984-93; president, City Council, Minneapolis, 1989-93; mayor of Minneapolis, 1994-.
Life's Work
In 1993 in Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota, Sharon Sayles Belton outpolled her white male opponent to become the first female and first African American mayor of that largely white- populated city. She ran on a platform that stressed education, crime prevention, city growth, and city unity. "We tried to emphasize our community's coming together throughout the campaign," Belton explained to Simeon Booker of Jet. "A lot of people didn't think it could be done. A lot of people said Minneapolis wasn't ready. But the people of Minnesota have spoken." As mayor she has built consensus and set new priorities, increasing public safety resources by $18 million, reducing the size of government, streamlining services, and keeping taxes in check.
While a teenager Belton began her commitment to public service when she volunteered at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis. During her college years at prestigious Macalester College, to which she had earned a scholarship, she worked for civil rights by traveling to Jackson, Mississippi, to register voters there. In her last year at Macalester College, Belton became pregnant and dropped out. Although she received good prenatal care, her daughter Kilayna was born mentally retarded, the result of oxygen deprivation. At that time, many retarded children were institutionalized, but Belton wanted to raise her daughter at home and fought for the resources to do so. When the necessary resources were not available, she worked to create them. The mayor would later tell Claire Safran of Good Housekeeping, "It made me a much tougher person. It gave me the drive and commitment that carries over to what I do today."
Many experiences prepared Belton for the mayorship of Minneapolis. Her work as a parole officer gave her insight into the criminal justice system and those who passed through it. As the assistant director for the Minnesota Program for Victims of Sexual Assault, she worked to build 26 centers to aid rape victims statewide and helped to start one of the first shelters in the United States for abused women, the Harriet Tubman Shelter. In addition to her paid work, Belton used her time and talents to benefit her local community. As a result, in 1984 her neighbors elected her to represent them on the City Council. Within five years she had become council president.
During her years as a council member, Belton married Steve Belton, a trial attorney and law firm partner. In addition to supporting now adult Kilayna, who lives in a residential facility during the week and at home on the weekends, the couple enjoys two sons, Jordan and Coleman. "I've always worked 60-hour-a-week jobs, so my husband is very supportive and cooperative," Belton told Ebony. "We have managed to share our household responsibilities and obligations, thus minimizing our conflicts. We are challenged to make sure that our life is balanced." Part of that balance is in taking quarterly vacations by themselves and in always having one parent available to the children. "We want our children to have the continuity of knowing that at least one parent is always home," Steven Belton told Ebony.
Before entering the 1993 race for mayor of Minneapolis, Belton met with her longtime friend and potential rival, Kathy O'Brien, to discuss the possibilities of success of either of them running for mayor. The meeting resulted in O'Brien's supporting and working actively for Belton's candidacy. After the primaries, it was clear that Belton would run against John Derus. Both candidates were liberals in the tradition of former Minneapolis mayor Don Fraser, who was retiring after a 14-year tenure, so they had to define themselves on other issues. While Derus chose a law-and-order platform, calling for a beefed-up police force to cut down on escalating crime, Belton voiced a broader message. She focused on education, anti-crime measures, city growth, and city unity. Instead of heavily using polls, debates, and televised advertisements, as has become the norm in many campaigns, Belton used such grassroots strategies as phone banks, public appearances, and door-to-door campaigning. Belton was also aided by Don Fraser's endorsement--and his voter-identification and fund-raising lists.
On election day, Belton garnered 58 percent of the vote, in a city that is 78 percent white. A clear indication of the success of her grassroots efforts is that some 8,500 new voters registered at the polls, and most of them voted for her. In the words of the new mayor, as quoted in Ebony, "We emphasized throughout the campaign that the citizens of Minneapolis were capable of setting aside the issues of race and gender and voting for the candidate that was best-suited to keep the city a viable community, and they did that."
Belton's management style is one of creating consensus, the same style that made her so effective on the City Council. Many of her colleagues and advisors are women, including City Council president Kathy O'Brien, with whom the mayor works closely. "Our model of leadership is that you gain power by sharing power," O'Brien told Safran. "And you do that by talking to everyone who has a stake in the problem. You listen to what they have to say, and you include them in the solution," she added.
Though women leaders maintain that they represent the entire community, they do tend to focus on previously neglected "women's issues," such as domestic violence, sexual assault, child care, health care, and child-support collection. Belton stresses crime prevention, such as gun control and school truancy prevention. Because she wants to hold the line on taxes, she is looking for partners in the county, state, and federal governments, and in the private sector as well. Also on her agenda are programs to better control noise at the airport and pollution of the city's lakes. "I have spent over 21 years of my life working actively in the Minneapolis community on a number of issues that impact the quality of life," Belton told Ebony. "My entire career--public, private and civic--reflect my commitment to serving the people."
Awards
Branch Award, NAACP Minneapolis, 1988; Leadership Award, Minnesota Minority Lawyers Association, 1990; Leadership Recognition, Black, Indian, Hispanic, Asian Women of Color, 1991; Distinguished Citizen Award, Macalester College, 1992; Annual Award, National Association of Minority Contractors, 1993; Public Citizen of the Year, National Association of Social Workers, Minnesota Chapter, 1994; Distinguished Achievement Award, University of Minnesota College of Education, 1994; Susan B. Anthony Award, Minnesota Center for Women in Government, Hamline University, 1994; B. Robert Lewis Award, Minnesota Public Health Association, 1995; Alumni Hall of Fame, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, 1996; Rosa Parks Award, American Association for Affirmative Action, 1997.
Further Reading
- Ebony, February, 1994, pp. 92-96; July, 1996, pp. 115-19.
- Good Housekeeping, November, 1994, pp. 98-100.
- Jet, November 22, 1993, pp. 4-10; January 24, 1994, pp. 22-24.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, November 3, 1993, p. 1103K5487.
- Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1996, p. A5.
- MPLS-St. Paul Magazine, September, 1991, p. 188; March, 1994, pp. 36-45.
— Jeanne Lesinski
