Richmond, the Madison County seat, is about 96 percent white.
Madison County is 94 percent white; Donald Trump collected nearly 63 percent of its vote.
But city voters elected an African American mayor last November. Robert Blythe is the local NAACP president, to boot.
Mayor Blythe has lived all his 69 years in Richmond. “Mayor?” he smiled and mused. “It wasn’t on my list of aspirations when I was growing up.”
Blythe didn’t expect to make local history either. Not only is he Richmond’s first black mayor, he was also his hometown’s first African American city commissioner. He won 8 two-year terms before running for mayor.
Blythe recently traveled to Paducah where he was keynote speaker for the 2019 NAACP state convention. He got rave reviews, according to J.W. Cleary, Paducah NAACP president.
“You could tell he was the kind of guy that was brought up right and has always tried to do the right thing,” Cleary said. “He’s the kind of guy we need in every community. Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t see color.’ He really means it.”
The election for Richmond mayor
As in most communities of its size—about 35,000—elections for Richmond mayor and city commission are non-partisan.
Blythe defeated fellow city commissioner Jim Newby, who is white, last November. “In my inaugural remarks, I thanked the 4,661 who voted for me and said I accept the challenge of the 4,000 who supported my opponent to gain their support over the next four years.”
Growing up in Richmond in Jim Crow times
Blythe’s roots go deep in Richmond. He lives on the street where he was born.
He grew up when Kentucky was part of the Jim Crow South. Segregation and race discrimination were the law and the social order.
Blythe was a teenager when the civil rights movement began gaining strength in Kentucky and elsewhere. “I didn’t think things would change very soon. But because of the kind of person I am, I was more hurt than angry in my younger years.”
He remembered that the city’s black schools had to make do with worn-out desks and books from the white schools.
“We got everything second-hand. The book backs were torn off; there were drawings in them. The desks were carved up.”
Richmond’s public schools had been desegregated by the time he was ready for high school. “I went to Richmond Colored Junior High. Richmond Colored High School had closed.”
He remembered that the city school board forced several African American teachers to become librarians. “Many of them had credentials far beyond their white peers and they had to go back to school and get a library certificate. The board didn’t want blacks teaching white students.”
in 1971, Blythe earned a bachelor’s degree in math—with a French minor—from once segregated Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. He then taught math and French at Madison and Madison Southern high schools, followed by teaching math at EKU. He retired in 2011.
He also is pastor at First Baptist Church on Francis Street. Blythe has a master’s degree in divinity and a doctor of divinity degree from Covington Theology School.
Blythe won his first term on the city commission in 2002. “One of my former high school students had called me regarding the business he was in,” the mayor chuckled. “At the end of the call, I said, ‘Oh, by the way, I would appreciate your support in the upcoming election.’
“The young man said, ‘Aw, Mr. Blythe, your students are going to elect you. Since, I’d taught half the county, I thought it was possible.”
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