The 2029 Indianapolis mayoral election took place on November 5, 1929, and saw Democrat Reginald H. Sullivan winning in a landslide victory.[1] Incumbent mayor, Democrat Lemuel Ertus Slack, had been appointed mayor in 1927 following the resignation of Republican John L. Duvall after he was charged with corruption by the state.
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Duvall had been elected mayor in 1925 with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Marion County Republican Party had close Klan ties.[1] The City Council and school board both were composed of Klan-supported members.[1] Opposition arose by 1929 to both the Klan and to the corruption in the city government.[1] Sullivan's victory was seen as a rebuke of the Ku Klux Klan.[1]
The Republican nominee was businessman Alfred M. Glossbrenner.[2]
Sullivan spent much of the campaign in a hospital bed after being injured in an airplane crash.[3] Sullivan received strong support from African American and Catholic voters.[3]
Coinciding mayoral elections across the state also saw Klan-supported, generally Republican, mayors voted out and replaced by new, generally Democratic, mayors.[1] Anderson, Elkhart, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Muncie, and Terre Haute all replaced Klan-supported Republicans with Democratic mayors in what the New York Times hoped would be, "The dawn of a more liberal and cleaner political day in Indiana".[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g Madison, James H. (1982). Indiana Through Tradition and Change: A History of the Hoosier State and Its People, 1920-1945. Indiana Historical Society. pp. 73 and 74.
- ^ "Image 24 of [Broadsides, tickets, leaflets, sample official ballots, etc. 1929]". Library of Congress. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
- ^ a b Hamlett, Ryan (September 10, 2013). "Lake Reginald Sullivan". Historic Indianapolis | All Things Indianapolis History. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
| Preceded by 1925 |
Indianapolis mayoral election 1929 |
Succeeded by 1933 |