Robert C. Henry

Who was Robert C. Henry?

Robert Clayton Henry was mayor of Springfield, Ohio from 1966 to 1968. He was the first African-American mayor of an American city of any size, though this achievement is frequently overshadowed by fellow African American mayor Carl B. Stokes, who was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967.

Henry was born in Springfield, a son of Guy Henry and Nellie Reed. He attended Wittenberg University in Springfield and the Cleveland College of Mortuary Science in Cleveland, Ohio for his degree in mortuary studies. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Central State University in 1968.

Henry was elected to Springfield's city commission in 1961, and began his term in January 1962. The commission then appointed him as the city's mayor in 1966, succeeding Maurice K. Baach, the city's first Jewish mayor. In 1968, he refused to run for re-election, but remained on the city commission. After finishing his term as mayor, Henry was selected as a member of a fact-finding commission to Vietnam by order of then-president, Lyndon Johnson, and later returned in 1970 under Richard M. Nixon to inspect non-military activities.