History
Our Founding
Thirteen Black mayors, newly elected in the South, were the visionaries who founded the Southern Conference of Black Mayors (SCBM) in 1974. They were elected following enactment of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. Passage of this landmark legislation dramatically increased the number of African Americans elected to public office within a short time, especially at the local level in the South where the number of mayors multiplied fivefold.
A small group of Black mayors from several southern states met informally in Fayette, Mississippi in 1972 where they discussed the possible development of a program of mutual benefit to their respective communities. A year after meeting in Fayette, a second meeting of 15 Black mayors was held in Tuskegee, Alabama. Their discussions led to the founding of SCBM. In 1974, 20 Black mayors gathered in Santee, South Carolina and voted to officially incorporate the organization. The group hired its first executive director and opened a headquarters office that year in Atlanta, Georgia.
By the occasion of its first annual convention in 1975 in Grambling, Louisiana, SCBM had identified various funding sources, performed several economic development and water systems studies, and developed an extensive technical assistance program.
In 1976, at the second annual convention in Atlanta, at the prompting of mayors from the Midwest who attended the meeting, the mayors voted to expand the organization’s scope by changing the name to the National Conference of Black Mayors, Inc. (NCBM).
The same year, NCBM obtained tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization from the Internal Revenue Service, developed and presented a series of municipal management clinics in local communities, and produced a myriad of proposals that led to a significant increase of public support to member communities.
