Cherelle Parker on becoming the first woman poised to be Philly mayor: ‘I didn’t get here alone’
In some of her first comments since winning the nomination, Parker thanked — by name — some of the trailblazing women who came before her.
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Cherelle Parker paused, removed her glasses, and breathed deeply. For a brief moment, the crowded courtyard on Market Street fell silent.
She’d just been asked publicly for the first time since winning the Democratic nomination for Philadelphia mayor what it means to her that she is the first woman to ever do so.
“The breaking of glass ceilings is not what is giving people like me access to an opportunity,” Parker said during a Monday news conference. “What’s given women, Black women like me, access to an opportunity, is when someone has laid a concrete path. For me, that would be concrete pavers.”
She continued: “I didn’t get here alone. I’m not superwoman. I stand on the shoulders of some women who generations ago, they could have been standing up as the Democratic nominee for mayor were it not for their inability to raise the funds needed to compete with, most of the time, men.”
Parker will in November face Republican David Oh, also a former City Council member, in the general election. Parker is heavily favored to win given the city’s deep-blue electorate. If she prevails, she would in January be sworn in as the 100th mayor and the first woman to ever helm City Hall. Philadelphia is one of just a few major American cities that has never elected a woman to the job.
» READ MORE: Philly has had 99 mayors. Not one of them was a woman.
On Monday — her first major public appearance since she was hospitalized on Election Day for a dental emergency — thanked her longtime mentor Marian B. Tasco, a former City Council member who is legendary in Black political circles and hired Parker as a high school intern.
Parker named other trailblazing women who came before her, including:
Augusta “Gussie” Clarke, a 20-year Council member and just the second Black woman to ever serve on the body.
Roxanne Jones, a Philadelphia politician and the first Black woman elected to the state Senate.
Anna Verna, Philadelphia’s first female City Council president.
Joan L. Krajewski, who served on Council for more than 30 years.
C. Delores Tucker, a civil rights activist who in 1971 was appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
“I don’t know whether or not any of you know who those women were,” Parker told the gaggle of press and onlookers assembled outside Monday morning. “But I saw those women in living color, and I saw them doing their work.
“So if I can find a way to add value, to motivate, inspire, and encourage a generation of girls to say, ‘Wow, no one can put me in a box,’” she said, “that makes me feel really good.”