Breaking Barriers: Darrell Davis Edmonds First Black Mayor Redfined Leadership and Legacy

Darrell Davis became the first African American to serve on the Edmond City Council and the first African American mayor of Edmond, marking a historic milestone for the city.

Growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, Davis witnessed the realities of race in America. His father, an All-American athlete inducted into the Hall of Fame at Northern Illinois University in track, football, and basketball, was an example of excellence. Davis also had inspiration from his grandparents. He credited their resilience as a driving force in his own life.

“Hearing what he had to go through, my grandparents were from South Carolina, what they had to go through growing up. They were my inspiration to be better. Because they went through a lot more than I’ve ever gone through, just to live and survive,” said Davis.

Davis graduated from Morehouse College. Following college, Davis came to Oklahoma to work at Tinker Air Force Base and the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant. What began as a temporary move soon became permanent. He and his family eventually settled in Edmond, where he would spend the next 35 years building a career with the federal government, rising to the rank of GS-15, the highest civilian employee grade.

Davis never planned to enter politics. His path into public service began through his children’s education. At his daughter’s first parent-teacher conference, both he and his wife showed up. The teachers were surprised; they had rarely seen two parents in the room at the same time.

Davis took note. He and his wife began helping at the school. They showed up, got involved, and one involvement led to another.

“Throughout the years of raising three kids in Edmond Public Schools, I just got more and more involved.”

That engagement expanded into civic leadership as he began serving on city committees, eventually spending 15 years on the Parks and Recreation Board before being elected to the Edmond City Council in 2011. It was only afterward that he learned he had become the first African American ever to hold that seat.

 During the COVID-19 pandemic, Davis watched the community he had helped to build. 

“I can’t get out of this now,” he decided.

Davis talked with his wife and daughter, asking,  “Are we gonna run for mayor?” Both said yes, and with their full support, the family made the decision together that they would run for mayor.

On the night of his victory in May 2021, a phone call informed him he had just become the first African American mayor in Edmond’s history.

“It was overwhelming. It was humbling. I’ve been Black for 67 years, and I’ve done a lot of firsts. But it didn’t change me. It didn’t change my family. I just kept doing the things I felt were necessary to be done,” said Davis

During his time in office, one of his proudest accomplishments was helping remove racially restrictive language from 19 property plats across Edmond. Working with legislators and community partners, Edmond became the first municipality in Oklahoma to eliminate such language from multiple plats, and on his final day in office, Davis signed the last document completing that effort. 

He also supported projects acknowledging Edmond’s racial history, working with the Edmond History Museum to place a public art installation and commemorative plaque on the street where Black residents were once permitted to live, emphasizing the importance of confronting the past honestly rather than ignoring it.

“Edmond has a checkered past, being a sundown town, but I didn’t want that to hold us back,” Davis said. “I didn’t want people to sweep it under the table. I wanted to use that as a foundation, a building block for us to go forward.”

After serving two mayoral terms, Davis retired from municipal government in 2025, following retirements from federal service in 2021 and teaching in 2023. 

“People can remember me as Darrell Davis, the kid who moved here from Cincinnati, Ohio, a husband, a father of three, and a grandfather. I didn’t set out with some big agenda for all of this to happen. I just wanted Edmond.  I wanted our society to be a better place. We’re all the same,” said Davis.