AJ McClung

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AJ McClung in the sports stadium named after him

Arthur Joseph "AJ" McClung (born January 15, 1912 in Birmingham , Alabama , † November 17, 2002 ) was an American politician . In 1973 he was the first African American mayor of a major city in the southern states .

Life

education and profession

McClung was born as the second oldest child of Arthur Holman McClung and Claudia Robinson McClung and grew up with an older and a younger sister. When his father died, McClung dropped out of high school to support the family. When his mother found out, she sent him to the Tuskegee Institute , where he graduated in 1933. He then became a PE teacher at Westfield High School in Birmingham.

In the 1940s he was given the opportunity to graduate from Columbia University in New York City to work for the United Service Organizations (USO). The racial segregation at that time in the US armed forces was necessary McClung program director should be the USO for black troops. His first assignment as program director brought him and his family to Panama City , where they only stayed for a short time. In 1943 McClung settled in Columbus , Georgia with his family . From 1943 to 1954 he continued to work as program director of the United Service Organizations, first for the troops stationed at Fort Benning , then for two years in Wichita Falls , Texas , where he looked after the troops stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base in this role. He then returned to Columbus with his family, where he was Executive Director of the YMCA from 1954 to 1978 , which at that time was still called Ninth Street Branch , which opened as Brookhaven Boulevard Branch YMCA in the mid-1960s and was finally renamed AJ McClung YMCA in 1978 has been. In 1979 McClung became Deputy Director of the Columbus Urban League and held this post until 1980.

McClung was married and had a daughter.

Political career

In 1970 McClung was first elected to the Columbus City Council. When Columbus converted its city administration to consolidated government in 1971, McClung took on an important role in the implementation of the city's new charter . When the previous mayor, JR Allen , was killed in a plane crash on February 15, 1973, McClung took office as mayor pro tempore . He held this office for a total of 52 ½ days. McClung was the first African American mayor of a major city in the southern states. In April 1973 he was replaced by the Republican Bob D. Hydrick , who was elected the new mayor in a by-election .

McClung was on the Columbus City Council until 1998 when he retired. The Columbus sports stadium AJ McClung Memorial Stadium was named after him in 2002. In order to be able to do this while the ill McClung was still alive, the city council ignored the law that forbade naming a public building after a living person.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the YMCA of Metropolitan Columbus ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), website of the YMCA of Metropolitan Columbus
  2. ^ A b Rome News-Tribune , April 4, 1973
  3. ^ List of Mayors of Columbus, Georgia , Columbus City website
  4. ↑ a b Richard Hyatt: Good advice from a man named Red , November 8, 2014, Ledger-Enquirer
personal data
SURNAME McClung, AJ
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McClung, Arthur Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham , Alabama
DATE OF DEATH November 17, 2002