My Life in Books
How do we know who we are? As we grow, we experience new things, learn more about ourselves, and meet people who help shape us. But when we’re young, how do we envision what’s possible? What does it mean to be a woman, a black woman, an American, or even a human being?
Without intending to, it turns out I was exploring all those questions during my formative years, not through television shows or movies or music, but through books.
I may not have been twenty-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African-American living in poverty on Chicago’s south side in the 1930s, but his story, his struggle— shared in the book Native Son by Richard Wright—opened my eyes to race relations and the criminal justice system.
Books like Native Son and Gone with the Wind inspired me to keep reading and talking about stories that were not always the most popular or PC. Stories like these help ground us in the experiences of human beings and will help me share my own.
About Ivy
Ivy R. Taylor was elected Mayor of San Antonio in June 2015, nearly one year after being appointed to the seat by her City Council colleagues. She is the first African American female Mayor of a city with more than one million people and the second female Mayor of San Antonio. Before becoming Mayor, she served on City Council for five years.
Mayor Taylor is focused on making San Antonio a globally competitive city where all residents are connected to opportunities for prosperity. She helped achieve unanimous approval for the Vista Ridge Pipeline project to ensure the city’s water supply, facilitated a mediated agreement between the city and the police union, assisted in contract negotiations to make transportation network companies operational, achieved functional zero in the initiative to End Veterans Homelessness, established My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio to improve the lives of young men and much more.
Mayor Taylor began her career working for the city’s Housing and Community Development Department and Neighborhood Action Department then moved on to work at Merced Housing Texas and UTSA.
She earned degrees from Yale University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mayor Taylor is a devoted wife and mother.
- Website – http://www.SanAntonio.gov/mayor
- Email – Mayor.IvyTaylor@SanAntonio.gov
- Twitter – https://twitter.com/IvyRTaylor
- Linked In – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivy-taylor-73135841
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