Lottie Shackelford

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Lottie H. Shackelford is a United States civil servant, politician and a vice chair of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

A resident of Little Rock, Arkansas, President of the United States Bill Clinton appointed Shackelford to the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in 1993. Previous to her term, she was Deputy Campaign Manager for the Clinton-Gore Presidential Campaign and Co-Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Clinton Transition Team in 1992.

She was the first Black woman elected mayor of the city of Little Rock in 1987. Her rise to that post should have been forseen, as she was interested in goverment early in her life.

That interest became quite evident in junior high. As a student in Alexander Cann's ninth-grade Civics class (at Paul Lawrence Dunbar unior High), she showed a keen insight into the political aspects of government. Her poignant and pointed questions indicated, even then, that she would be part of the political scene at some point in her life.

An honor student during her school career, she also had a way with people (her fellow students and teachers alike). She was an excellent Phys Ed student, as she demonstrated by becoming one of the star drum majorettes wioth the school band at Horace Mann Senior High School.

An aspiring socialite, she was one of the founding members of the "Jazzettes." They were a group of seven young women who, in high school, became the counterpart to seven band members, the "Jazzmen" they called themselves, who listened to, and some played, jazz music in their free time. To this day, young women in Little Rock attempt to follow her in that role.