Lincoln University graduate Cherelle Parker has won the Democratic primary for mayor of Philadelphia and is the likely candidate to become the city’s next mayor, writes Jenice Armstrong for The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

While many had predicted that the race would be close, Parker proved them wrong by winning the Democratic nomination handily. 

Parker is a welcome change in the highest levels of government where women, and especially women of color, have been vastly underrepresented not just in Pennsylvania but in the nation as well. 

However, Parker did not have an easy path to the top. She was born to a single, teenage girl and raised by her grandparents. Her family was on welfare while she was growing up. She attended public schools before joining the historically Black college in Chester County. 

She became a single mother herself later in life. But that did not stop her from winning elections and becoming first a state representative and then a City Council member. Now she is poised to become the first woman mayor of Philadelphia, and the first woman of color to do so.

Read more about Cherelle Parker in The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

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