Brandon Dean is a 24-year-old Howard University graduate who’s making history as mayor of his hometown. Last month, Dean became the youngest mayor to ever be elected to office in Brighton, Alabama.
Dean beat out the incumbent mayor and four other candidates in the Aug. 23 election, and hit the ground running.
“I know exactly what we have to do,” he said according to the Brighton Times. “I have made contact with city hall, the police chief to make sure they are able to reach me and heads of departments are able to reach me to begin discussions about what they want to happen in the next administration.”
A fifth generation Brighton native and the founder and chair of a political action committee, Dean completed two internships on Capitol Hill, and helped reform “election and voting procedures” at Howard University in 2014.
Per his Facebook page, the college grad was 12 years old when he recognized the impact of “substance abuse and poverty on his community,” which included his father’s battle with alcohol addiction.
Despite the “devastating” effects of his father’s alcoholism on the family, Dean “grew to understand that addiction, for his father and others, had served as a mechanism to cope with their unjust social conditions and constant struggle for equality.”
The city of Brighton has a population of less than 3,000 with high rates of poverty and crime. But Dean’s optimism could very well be a necessary change in tide. As a statement on his website points out, “It is incumbent upon each of us (Citizens of Brighton and the world) not to be defined by our present condition but to be devoted to realizing the extraordinary expectations of a new day.”
Dean officially takes over the job as mayor on Nov. 7.