Severiano de Heredia Leads Paris

The first Black man to lead a Western capital was Cuban-born French politician Severiano de Heredia, who became president of the Paris Municipal Council in 1879. Paris had no elected mayor between 1871 and 1977, so the council presidency functioned as the city's mayor-equivalent office. De Heredia later served in the Chamber of Deputies and briefly became France's minister of public works in 1887.

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