Mike Elliott is among many who celebrated his election as mayor of Brooklyn Center as the beginning of a new era, marking the first time one of Minnesota's most racially diverse places would be led by a person of color.
Elliott, a Black man who had emigrated from Liberia as a child, was almost giddy in talking about his plans for multicultural city hall. “It’s incredible, it’s really incredible,” Elliott said then of Hmong, African, Vietnamese and white residents living side-by-side in the inner-ring Minneapolis suburb's working-class neighborhoods.
He called his 2018 election "an opportunity for the great diversity of the city to have a voice at the table.” A little more than two years later the mayor is finding out just how difficult it