Kenneth Reeves

Kenneth Reeves (born 1951) served as the mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, from 1992 to 1995 and again from 2006 to 2007. He is the first openly gay African-American man to have served as mayor of any city in the United States.[1]

Reeves attended Detroit's public schools and graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1968. After one year at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Reeves headed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to attend Harvard University where he earned his degree in American history and literature in 1973. In 1976, Reeves graduated from the University of Michigan Law School.[2]

Cambridge's elections are non-partisan, but he identifies himself with the Democratic Party. Reeves is a graduate of Harvard College. While mayor, he was a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition,[3] an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Thomas Menino.

Reeves has stopped paying the annual fee to the Massachusetts Bar in 1998 and therefore is suspended from practicing law. He stated that he does not see the logic in paying the Bar while he is not actively practicing law.[4]

Reeves was succeeded as mayor in 2008 by E. Denise Simmons, who became the first openly lesbian African-American mayor in the United States.