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Richard G. Hatcher
Hatcher in 1967
Mayor of Gary, Indiana
In office January 1, 1968 – January 1, 1988
Preceded by	A. Martin Katz
Succeeded by	Thomas V. Barnes
Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
In office 1981–1985
Personal details
Born	Richard Gordon Hatcher (1933-07-10) July 10, 1933 (age 91) Michigan City, Indiana, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Indiana University Valparaiso University School of Law
Occupation	Lawyer

Richard Gordon Hatcher (born July 10, 1933) is an American politician. On January 1, 1968, he became the first African-American mayor of Gary, Indiana. He and Carl Stokes (who was elected mayor of Cleveland on the same day) became, on November 7, 1967, the first two black elected mayors of cities of more than 100,000 people.

Biography

Hatcher was born in Michigan City, Indiana. He received a B.S. degree in business and government from Indiana University and a bachelor of law with honors in criminal law in 1956 and a J.D. from Valparaiso University School of Law in 1959. After moving to Gary, Indiana, Hatcher began practicing law in East Chicago, Indiana. In 1961, he began serving as a deputy prosecutor for Lake County, Indiana, until he was elected to Gary's City Council in 1963. He was the first and only freshman elected president of the City Council in Gary's history.

Elected in 1967, Hatcher was inaugurated mayor of Gary in 1968 and served until 1987. During his tenure as mayor, he became internationally known as a fervent and prolific civil rights spokesman. Hatcher was known for developing innovative approaches to urban problems and for being a national and international spokesman for civil rights, minorities, the poor and America's cities. He often delivered speeches alongside Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, and other historic proponents of the civil rights movement. On April 5, 1968, he addressed President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with a collection of politicians and civil rights leaders, on the topic of the King assassination the night before and pending civil unrest.

Hatcher was instrumental in getting the 1972 National Black Political Convention to come to Gary when the convention organizers struggled to find a city willing to host the event.

Hatcher's tenure in office was difficult from the start. Although 4 of the 9 city council members were also black, two of these members appeared more loyal to the Democratic machine than to Hatcher. Three of the remaining five white city council members were consistently hostile to Hatcher and his proposals. The reasons for an uncooperative city council ranged from racial animosity to corruption over the patronage system and organized crime, to the personal political ambitions of some council members. However, Hatcher was successful in eliminating a red light district and reducing illegal gambling nearly to zero. However, as the city's steel industry began to collapse as part of the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, white flight and population decline began to intensify, and unemployment and crime began to rise. Governing became easier after 1971, when a number of allies were elected to the city council and took positions in city administration. Hatcher's good government initiatives did help clean up the police department of corruption and reduced patronage, but macroeconomic and societal forces beyond the city's control caused Gary to spiral into severe decline.

Although Hatcher won the 1967 election, the white-dominated Democratic machine was not about to give up; instead, they changed tactics and supported a middle-class black primary challenger whom they felt was a racial moderate and (most importantly) was more cooperative with the machine: Dr. Alexander Williams, a prominent black physician who was elected Lake County coroner with the machine's backing, and who represented Gary's black middle class and criticized Hatcher's tactics and policies. Specifically, Williams criticized the ongoing crime wave and Hatcher's urban renewal policies that saw the demolition of thousands of housing units while only 300 replacement units were built. However, Williams won only 37.5% of the vote in the primary, as black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to Hatcher. Hatcher then went on to crush the Republican nominee in the November general election by more than 50,000 votes, marking the end to any serious challenges from the Republicans or the Democratic machine.

In 1971, Hatcher targeted the neighboring unincorporated area of Merrillville, Indiana for annexation to gain more land for suburban expansion and to recapture some of the population that had left Gary. However, the white suburban state representatives passed a special exemption to Indiana's incorporation laws (which prohibited incorporation within a five mile radius of an incorporated city) which allowed Merrillville to incorporate itself into a town. Following this, virtually all major retailers, banks, and other business establishments closed their location and fled to Merrillville. Over 100 major businesses moved from downtown Gary and Broadway Avenue to Merrillville in the 1970s, making downtown Gary into a ghost town. Tens of thousands of white residents followed, and Gary lost valuable jobs, residents, and tax revenues.

In the 1984 U.S. presidential election, Mayor Hatcher served as the chairman for Jackson's campaign. He served as the Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1981 to 1985. In 1988, Hatcher started his own consulting firm, R. Gordon Hatcher & Associates. From 1988 to 1989, he worked as an Institute of Politics Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He also began teaching political science at Roosevelt University in 1989 and later became a senior research professor at Valparaiso University, in 1991. In the summer of 1996, Hatcher taught a law course at Cambridge University in England. In 1991 he sought to retake his former position as mayor, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Thomas Barnes in the Democratic primary. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Indiana University-Northwest.

His daughter, Ragen Hatcher, is a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.

References

1. Kotz, Nick (2005). "14. Another Martyr". Judgment days : Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the laws that changed America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 417. ISBN 0-618-08825-3.
2. Johnson, Lyndon Baines (5 April 1968). "182 – Letter to the Speaker of the House Urging Enactment of the Fair Housing Bill". American Presidency Project. Retrieved 19 July 2012. We should pass the Fair Housing law when the Congress convenes next week.
3. The Indiana History Blog https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/mayor-richard-g-hatcher/. Retrieved 8 December 2019. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
4. Keiser, Richard A. (1997). Subordination or Empowerment?: African-American Leadership and the Struggle for Urban Political Power. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
5. Catlin, Robert A. Racial Politics And Urban Planning: Gary, Indiana, 1980-1989.
6. Catlin, Robert A. Racial Politics And Urban Planning: Gary, Indiana, 1980-1989.
7. "Indiana Elections 1991. Voters boot mayors in Muncie,". Northwest Indiana Times. 6 November 1991. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
8. Carlson, Carole. "Ragen Hatcher making bid for gubernatorial candidate Eddie Melton's state Senate seat". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2019-11-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links

• Richard Hatcher Collection
• Dave's Den contains a complete political history of Gary, Indiana

• African-American mayors
• Mayors of Gary, Indiana
• 1933 births
• Living people
• African-American people in Indiana politics
• People from Michigan City, Indiana
• Indiana Democrats
• 20th-century African-American people
• 20th-century American politicians
• Presidents of the United States Conference of Mayors
• Valparaiso University School of Law alumni