Eva Mack

Eva Williams Mack was Florida’s first black female mayor. Mack and Ruby Bullock became the first black city commissioners in 1978, and Mack was elected mayor by her fellow commissioners in 1982. Mack came to West Palm Beach in 1948 and worked as a public health nurse, then as a Florida A&M University instructor, and finally as the first health specialist for the county’s school board, where she lobbied for health classes in all grades and urged screening for sickle cell disease in black students. In 1979 Mack founded the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of Palm Beach County, whose office is named for her. Mack died in 1998.

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