Susan Weiner: Savannah's First Woman Mayor

Mayor Weiner delivering a speech.

​ I remember the first time I saw Mayor Susan Weiner. It was the grand opening of the new Social Security Offices on the southside ofs Savannah. I was fairly new to Savannah as she was to her mayorship. She was giving a speech about the glories of Social Security. When a  squadron of fighter jets flew over drowning her out. She politely waited and after they had flown by she declared, ”That is the sound of freedom.”  Then she spent a few minutes expounding on the United States great military. Needless to say the boy fresh off the non-violent farm of Koinonia did not take a likening to this diatribe.

But for a brief moment she captured the hearts of a violent crime ridden city in need of a hero. She had come to Savannah via Broadway. Weiner once played 17 different women in a stage play that toured internationally and was written by her husband Al Weiner. She spent 15 years as an actress. The Savannah murder rate had reached until this moment unheard of new heights because of the infamous Ricky Jivins gang. Savannah’s Mayor John Rousakis, who was completing his fifth term of office, had been ineffectual in stopping the crime wave that had hit Savannah. The black community had been taken aback by his proclamation of I will bring tanks in to patrol neighborhoods. This and what many in the black community interpreted as tin ear to deaths in the black community had the black community ready for a new face. The economy was in a slump. And the people of Savannah were looking for a new face. Susan Weiner with her dramatic and different New York Broadway ways made her very appealing.

She had lived in the city only for seven years. But she had never before run for office but she had served as chairwoman of Savannah's Private Industry Council. This gave her key connections in the city. So she ran as a tough on crime Republican in 1991. She worked hard in the black community. The combination of fear, desire for a new face, and her outreach to the black community and she won. She became the first woman mayor and the second Jewish mayor and one of the few Republican mayors in modern history.

The Ricky Jivins and many in his gang did go to jail during her term. As did several on the dole police officers. The crises had been abated. It was at this time that her husband demonstrated his New York City brashness and left many a feather ruffled in the more gentile Savannah. Mayor Weiner was likable but was not proving very adept at the ongoing running of the city. She ran for a second term against Floyd Adams. The black community because their part in Mayor Weiner’s election realized their untapped power in the mayoral election. Floyd Adams would defeat Weiner to become the first black mayor of Savannah by fewer than 260 votes. The black community would have their choice of mayor for the next twenty years.

Susan Weiner was someone who did not let grass grow under her feet. In 1996, she helped U.S. Senator Paul Coverdell establish the Coverdell Leadership Institute, a training program designed to increase the number of Georgia Republicans in elected and appointed government positions.Over 300 people would complete the training.

In 2004, Gov. Sonny Perdue named her as the executive director of the Georgia Council for the Arts, a position that brought together her two careers together politics and the theater. She became an advocate for the arts in Georgia.
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She died in Gainesville, Georgia on August 11, 2012 at the age of 66. “If you knew her, you would remember her,” Linda Scher said of her sister. “She was just dynamic, remarkable, kind, bright, electric, dramatic and then quiet, sweet, sincere - a beautiful human being who died too young.” She was a shooting star in Savannah’s history who crossed Savannah’s path in a time when she was needed to create change.
 
 
 

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Headline of paper when Susan Weiner won election for Mayor of Savannah