City of LaGrange elects first Black mayor

LAGRANGE, Ga. (WTVM) - Residents of Troup County now have a new mayor in town. Back In 1998, Reverend Edmondson was elected to the LaGrange City Council as a representative for District 2. During his tenure, he has helped bring projects to LaGrange like ‘The Thread’ and ‘Great Wolf Lodge’. Edmondson says he is overwhelmed with joy to be the new mayor of LaGrange.

“It means a lot to me to be the first African American mayor of the city, but I’m going to be the mayor of Lagrange not just an African American mayor because I can look at my color every day and know who I am but I’ll be the mayor for a whole city of LaGrange.”

Edmonson says residents of LaGrange can expect for him to try to his best to bring in new industries.

“Try to bring some big box stores in LaGrange - they can expect for me to try to make the streets safe and make sure that each citizen is treated fairly, and our government will be transparent for everyone,” said Edmonson.

Edmondson ran for mayor back in the 90s. Over a decade later, he says with him being the first Black mayor he wants underprivileged kids to never give up.

“Background that I came from at risk children - I want to show them that wherever you are does not determine are you going.”

“Some of the districts feel as though they’ve been given other crumbs district two feel as though they’ve been given the crumbs. Well we have someone at the head of the table now. We’ve been sitting at the table but now we have someone at the head of the table. So instead of getting the crumbs since they said that instead of getting crumbs now they have a piece of the pie.”

Edmundson is a senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

His predecessor Mayor Jim Thornton retired last year after being at the helm for over five years.

Copyright 2023 WTVM. All rights reserved.