Barbara Bohannan-Sheppard
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Barbara Bohannan-Sheppard | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania | |
| In office 1992–1995 | |
| Preceded by | Willie Mae Leake |
| Succeeded by | Dr. Aaron Wilson, Jr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 15, 1950 |
| Party | Democratic |
Barbara Bohannan-Sheppard (born June 15, 1950)[1] is an American politician who served as mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1995.[2] Bohannan-Sheppard was the first Democrat to be elected mayor of Chester in almost a century and the second female and second African-American mayor of Chester.
Bohannan-Sheppard became mayor when Chester was failing economically, recovering from corruption in city government and experiencing racial strife and a high crime rate.[3][4] She was a proponent for environmental justice for the residents of Chester but created a major controversy when she hired a male administrative assistant who had been convicted and served several years in prison for rape and murder.
Bohannan-Sheppard was born in Onancock, Virginia, a small town on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.[1] She was the oldest of seven children in a family from her father's second marriage. The family was poor; her father worked as a cook in a hotel in Ocean City, Maryland during the tourist season and her mother worked at a chicken processing plant. When she was 18 her father sent her to live with her half-brother in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to serve as a babysitter for his children. She met and married a SEPTA bus driver and they had two sons. She worked as a pharmacy technician and as a professional union organizer for the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees.[3]
She moved to Chester, Pennsylvania with her two sons after the marriage ended, in order to attend Widener College with the hope of becoming an attorney. She was forced to drop out because she could not afford the cost of tuition.[3] She started an in-home day care business as a way of making money and a home for her two children at the same time.[4][3] She remarried in 1990, to Monroe Sheppard, who owned an auto repair shop.[3]