#3 Top Story of 2007

Breaking White Incumbency

Before this year, there was one thing a white citywide elected official could always count on in St. Louis: they would probably never be knocked off by a black challenger.

But on March 6, underdog Lewis Reed defeated Jim Shrewsbury becoming both the first African-American to be elected President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen and, much more significantly, the first black to ever beat a white incumbent in a two-person citywide election in St. Louis history.

Reed was a client of A D French & Associates and here is a commercial that I produced for the campaign.