切雷尔·帕克简直是百里挑一选举费城第一位女市长。
在一次历史性的投票中，帕克成为这座兄弟之爱之城的第100任市长，也是第一位当选市长的女性。
“谁是切雷尔·帕克?一个做事果断的费城人。一个实干的市长，她永远不会忘记自己的根深蒂固，”帕克在周二晚上的获奖感言中说。“我生在费城，长在费城，至死都是费城人。"
51岁的帕克是前费城市议会成员，她在5月赢得民主党初选时面临着拥挤的场地，击败了同样是前市议会成员的共和党人大卫·吴，获得了超过74%的选票。
帕克将接替民主党人吉姆·肯尼，后者在法定最长两届任期后被禁止竞选连任。
肯尼在一份声明中说:“祝贺当选市长切雷尔·帕克，这是她非凡的公共服务生涯中的历史性里程碑。”“我很自豪地称Cherelle为朋友和同事，我期待着与她合作，以确保平稳和成功的过渡，使我们的城市继续前进。”
宾夕法尼亚州州长、民主党人乔希·夏皮罗也祝贺帕克获胜，他说，他已经与这位当选市长就她想要实现的目标进行了非正式的交谈。
夏皮罗在一份声明中说:“总的来说，她在与我相似的平台上开展了一场运动，我们如何教育我们的孩子，给我们的社区带来安全，并发展我们的经济。”“我认为我们将在这些问题上找到很多共同点。”
帕克得到了总统乔·拜登和副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯的支持，也成为继威尔逊·古德、约翰·斯特里特和迈克尔·纳特之后第四位当选费城市长的非洲裔美国人。
被认为是温和的民主党人，帕克竞选市长时承诺将美国第六大城市打造成“美国最安全、最干净、最环保的大城市”。
帕克升任市长之前，她曾在2015年至2022年9月期间在费城市议会任职，两年后，她在当选为市议会民主党多数党领袖后辞职，开始了她的市长竞选。
周二晚上，帕克在费城金属板工人大厅发表胜选演讲，她告诉支持者，为什么她认为她的竞选信息在不同的选民群体中产生了共鸣。
帕克说:“我会充分利用我的一切——我的生活经历、职业经历、学术准备——我会充分利用这一切，我会让费城成为全国最安全、最环保的大城市，为所有人提供经济机会。”
帕克出生并成长在费城西北部的芒特艾里社区，是一位十几岁的单身母亲的孩子，她在帕克11岁时去世。帕克后来被她的祖父母詹姆斯和多萝西·帕克抚养长大。
帕克的祖母在她获胜演讲时站在她身边，当帕克谈到她谦逊的教养时，她骄傲地笑着。
“我的祖母收集福利和补贴食品来照顾我，”帕克说，她自己也是一个11岁儿子的母亲。
帕克说，她想说出自己卑微的成长经历，因为“我需要人们知道，我的真实生活经历最接近我们城市里现在感受最痛苦的人。”
帕克十几岁时开始接触费城的政治。1990年，帕克在帕克威高中读高三时，赢得了全市的演讲比赛，并获得了1000美元的奖金和去塞内加尔和摩洛哥的旅行。作为竞赛的获胜者，她被介绍给当时的市议会议员玛丽安·塔斯科，后者雇用帕克作为实习生。
帕克就读于费城的一所小型私立大学林肯大学，1994年毕业，获得英语教育学士学位。她后来获得了宾夕法尼亚大学公共管理硕士学位。
在回到费城成为Tasco的全职员工之前，她曾在新泽西州欢乐谷做过一段时间的高中英语教师。当Tasco在2015年决定不寻求连任费城市议会时，帕克成功地发起了一场竞选活动，以接替她的旧老板。
帕克在市议会任职期间，于2019年帮助建立了“费城第一家园”计划，该计划为首次购房者提供财政援助。
然而，10年前的2005年，32岁的帕克首次竞选公职，成为赢得宾夕法尼亚州众议院席位的最年轻的非洲裔美国女性。在她担任费城西北第200区的州代表的十年中，帕克发起了费城税收公平法案，这是一项收集拖欠财产税的措施，随后为公立学校带来了数百万美元的资金。此外，帕克努力通过每包2美元的卷烟税，这也为费城公立学校带来了更多的资金。
Philadelphia voters elect city's first female mayor in historic vote
Cherelle Parker is literally one in a hundred after beingelectedPhiladelphia's first female mayor.
In a historic vote, Parker became the City of Brotherly Love's 100th mayor and the first woman elected to the office.
"Who is Cherelle Parker going to be? A get-it-done Philadelphian. A get-it-done mayor who won't ever forget her deep roots," Parker said in her acceptance speech Tuesday night. "I'm Philly-born, I'm Philly-bred, and I'll be Philadelphian 'til I'm dead."
The 51-year-old Parker, a former Philadelphia City Council member who faced a crowded field in May when she won the Democratic primary, trounced Republican David Oh, also a former city council member, garnering more than 74% of the vote.
Parker will succeed fellow Democrat Jim Kenney, who was barred from running for reelection after serving a legally mandated maximum of two terms.
"Congratulations to mayor-elect Cherelle Parker on this historic milestone in her extraordinary career of public service," Kenney said in a statement. "I am proud to call Cherelle a friend and a colleague, and I look forward to working with her to ensure a smooth and successful transition that keeps our city's progress on track."
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, also congratulated Parker on her win, saying he's already had informal conversations with the mayor-elect about what she wants to accomplish.
"In general, she ran a campaign on similar platforms to me, how we educate our children, to bring safety to our communities, and grow our economy," Shapiro said in a statement. "And those are issues that I think we're going to find a lot of common ground on."
Parker, who was endorsed by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, also becomes the fourth African American to be elected mayor of Philadelphia, following Wilson Goode, John Street and Michael Nutter.
Considered a moderate Democrat, Parker campaigned for mayor on a promise of making the nation's sixth-largest city the "safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation."
Parker's rise to the mayor's office comes after she served on the Philadelphia City Council from 2015 to September 2022, when she resigned to launch her mayoral campaign, two years after she was elected the majority leader for Democrats on the city council.
During her Tuesday-night victory speech at the Sheet Metal Workers Hall in Philadelphia, Parker told supporters why she thought her campaign message resonated with a diverse group of voters.
"I would put to great use everything inside of me – my lived life experience, my professional experience, my academic preparation – that I would put all of it to great use and I would make Philadelphia the safest, the greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all," Parker said.
Born and raised in the Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Mount Airy, Parker is the child of a teenaged single mother who died when Parker was 11 years old. Parker was subsequently raised by her grandparents, James and Dorothy Parker.
Parker's grandmother stood at her side during her victory speech, beaming with pride as Parker spoke of her modest upbringing.
"My grandmother collected welfare and subsidized food to take care of me," said Parker, herself the mother of an 11-year-old son.
Parker said she wanted to speak out about her humble upbringing because "I needed people to know that my real-life lived experienced was closest to the people who are feeling the most pain right now in our city."
Parker's introduction to Philadelphia city politics came when she was a teenager. As a senior at Parkway High School in 1990, Parker won a citywide oratorical contest that came with a $1,000 cash prize and trip to Senegal and Morocco. As the contest winner, she was introduced to then-city council member Marian Tasco, who hired Parker as an intern.
Parker attended Lincoln University, a small private college in Philadelphia, where she graduated in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in English education. She later earned a master's degree in public administration from the University of Pennsylvania.
She briefly worked as a high school English teacher in Pleasantville, New Jersey, before returning to Philadelphia to work as a full-time staffer for Tasco. When Tasco decided in 2015 not to seek reelection to the Philadelphia City Council, Parker launched a successful campaign to succeed her old boss.
During her stint on the city council, Parker helped establish the "Philly First Home" program in 2019, which provided financial assistance to help first-time homeowners.
Parker first ran for public office, however, ten years earlier, in 2005 when she was 32 years old, becoming the youngest African American woman to win a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. During her decade as a state representative for Northwest Philadelphia's 200th District, Parker initiated the Philadelphia Tax Fairness Act, a measure to collect delinquent property taxes that subsequently generated millions of dollars in funding for public schools. Additionally, Parker worked to pass a $2-per-pack cigarette tax that also generated more funding for Philadelphia public schools.
