A. C. Wharton

A. C. Wharton, Jr. is a Tennessee Democratic Party politician and mayor of Shelby County, Tennessee, the first African American to serve in that office.^[1]

Wharton, who was born and raised in Lebanon, Tennessee, received a bachelor's degree in 1966 from Tennessee State University, where he majored in political science, and a law degree in 1971 from the University of Mississippi.^[2] During his career as an attorney, he was Shelby County's public defender, a partner in the law firm Wharton & Wharton & Associates in Memphis, a professor of law at the University of Mississippi, executive director of Memphis Area Legal Services, an investigator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and an attorney for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

He was elected to his first term as Mayor of Shelby County in 2002 with 62 percent of the vote and was reelected easily in 2006.

He is married to Ruby Wharton, with whom he has three sons. The couple has also raised three other children. ^[2]

Wharton is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He is a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition^[3], a bi-partisan group with a stated goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets." The Coalition is co-chaired by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.