Derek Green endorses Cherelle Parker for mayor, adding to a growing list of support from city leaders

Derek Green is backing his Northwest Philadelphia neighbor and former City Council colleague in the mayor’s race.

Green, a former City Council member who dropped out of the race in mid-April citing fundraising challenges, endorsed Cherelle Parker on Tuesday morning in the May 16 Democratic primary, calling her the tough-on-crime candidate the city needs.

“I started thinking who has the ability to really say the things that need to be said that may not be the most popular but are needed to reduce gun violence in the city of Philadelphia,” Green said at a news conference at the Octavius Catto statue outside of City Hall.

Green, who introduced Parker as the next “Madame Mayor,” also said he thought she could convene people to solve challenges related to poverty and education. He said he also had conversations with candidates Allan Domb and Rebecca Rhynhart in deciding whom to endorse.

While all of the candidates have run on addressing crime, Parker has leaned heavily into tough-on-crime rhetoric. She’s been pushing to add more cops to neighborhood beats since she was in Council and has a campaign pledge to add 300 cops to the force if elected. She has said she would support the constitutional use of stop and frisk.

“I am going to be extremely authentic about advocacy for the city,” Parker said Tuesday. “I am going to make some decisions that there will be some things that people don’t agree with.”

Green, a former prosecutor, said Parker will “say the things that need to be said to address the gun violence crisis. “74% of the victims of shootings look just like me and look just like Langston,” Green said, referencing Parker’s 10-year-old son.

A growing number of Philadelphia Democratic ward leaders and lawmakers have backed Parker, including Philadelphia’s two congressmen, Dwight Evans and Brendan Boyle, outgoing City Council President Darrell Clarke, and a dozen state lawmakers, including state Sens. Vincent Hughes and Sharif Street. She’s also backed by the Building Trades, the powerful electric workers union, SEIU32BJ, the Carpenters and the Laborers’ District Council, among other labor groups.

Parker pushed back against the framing that she’s a hand-picked insider, though.

“Someone coming from the humble beginnings I come from, I have never been handpicked to do anything in my life,” she said “I am not handpicked. I am homegrown.”

She said her relationships will benefit her as mayor and that her past work — in the state legislature and City Council — shows she has the intra-governmental experience to bring people together.

“I am the only candidate in this race who understands that Philadelphia cannot do it alone. We will need to access not just state funds but federal funds. ... It won’t be a mayor with a savior complex saying, ‘I’m coming to save you, Philadelphia.’ ... I’m gonna get us back the convening power of the office of the mayor.”

Parker lauded Green’s political career and candidacy, particularly how he raised up the story of his son, a young Black man with autism, as he talked about the city’s problems.

As a City Council member, Green fought unsuccessfully for Philadelphia to adopt a system to publicly finance city elections to level the playing field against deep-pocketed candidates and special interests. He cited those same financial factors in the mayor’s race as the primary reason he dropped out.

Both Green and Parker live in Northwest Philadelphia and got their political start working for then-City Councilmember Marian Tasco, a former leader of the Northwest Coalition, a politically powerful group of Black lawmakers that goes back decades. A win for Parker, who heads one of the biggest turnout wards in the Northwest, would be a notable sign of the coalition’s modern-day strength.