Otis Johnson
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Otis Samuel Johnson is, as of 2004, the current mayor of Savannah, Georgia. He is a Democrat.
Mayor Johnson is a Savannah native who graduated from A.E. Beach High School in 1960, Armstrong Junior College (now Armstrong Atlantic State University) in 1964 (the first African American to graduate from that school) and the University of Georgia (A.B.) in 1967. He served from 1959 to 1965 in the U.S. Naval Reserve. In 1969, he earned a master's degree in social work from Clark Atlanta University and, in 1980, he received his Ph.D. from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.
Before becoming mayor, Johnson worked for the Economic Opportunity Authority, Model Cities Program, and Savannah State University. From 1983 until 1988, he served as the City Council Representative from the second district of Savannah. He then became the Executive Director of the Chatham Savannah Youth Futures Authority. In 1999, he began a four-year term on the Savannah-Chatham Board of Education. After being elected to serve as Savannah’s 64th mayor, Johnson took office in January 2006 and will serve a four-year term.
In April 2005, Mayor Johnson publicly challenged Savannah's African American community to begin a concerted effort to address the city's high crime rate, especially in predominantly black neighborhoods of the city. Johnson stressed that criminal acts in Savannah were often perpetrated by young African American males on their own community, and he called a series of well-attended town meetings to address the problem.
In 2006, Otis Johnson was hospitalized after he had a heart attack while attending a black mayor's conference. While he was away from City Hall for weeks, he seemed to make a full recovery. [1]
On April 2nd 2007, Johnson announced he would seek reelection to the office of Mayor. His second campaign is similar to the first in that he is focused on neighborhood improvement, crime reduction, poverty reduction and providing more affordable housing.
