John Richard Archer (1863-1932) was a mixed-race British politician and first black mayor in London.
He was the son of Richard Archer, a black man from Barbados and Mary Burns, a white Irish woman.
Archer was in the merchant navy and travelled extensively. He married a black Canadian woman and eventually settled in Battersea in Britain.
Archer was variously described as a singer, medical student and eventually as a political activist, and photographer.
He started speaking publicly some time after 1900--speaking against spiritualism and for the civil rights of blacks. He served in a variety of elected posts and in 1913 was elected as Mayor of Battersea as a Progressive. He went on to serve as alderman later. And in 1931, he returned to the Council. He died suddenly in 1931.-Heidi Durrow
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year's profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. Copyright 2014.
