In 1975, Albert H. Wheeler was elected mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the first African American to hold the office. The Bentley Historical Library's account of his papers notes that the election was decided under a preferential voting system after no candidate won a majority outright. He served from 1975 to 1978, holding the office during a leave from the University of Michigan, where his professional life had been rooted in science.
Wheeler came to Ann Arbor in 1937 as a graduate student and earned his doctorate from the university in 1944. He joined the Medical School, taught microbiology and immunology, and studied the bacterium that causes syphilis. In a recorded interview, he explained that the preventive focus of public health appealed to him.
Ann Arbor's Black residents had been settling in the city in large numbers for more than a century by the time Wheeler won the mayor's office, according to the University of Michigan's online exhibit on race at the university. He was also part of a small Black professional community in the city. In 1949, he co-founded the Ann Arbor Civic Forum.
Alongside his scientific work, Wheeler pressed for greater opportunities for Black students and staff. Michigan Public describes his efforts to diversify the Medical School during nearly three decades on its faculty. A WEMU Black History Month feature on Wheeler also describes him as the university's first tenured African American professor.
His university career and public service ran on parallel tracks for years. After the mayor's office, his attention returned to the institution where he had spent his working life. He died in 1994. Michigan Public's 2021 account of his career noted that his push for Black equality at the university and in Ann Arbor continues to have an effect decades later.
