13abc salutes Black History Month: State senator Paula Hicks-Hudson

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Paula Hicks Hudson has offered a new perspective for young African American women as she’s dedicated her career to showcasing that glass ceilings are meant to be broken.

From her role as a city councilwoman in district four to her current role as a state senator, Hicks-Hudson continues to inspire others.

13abc’s Kristian Brown spent time reflecting with Toledo’s first African-American female mayor for this week’s salute to Black History Month. Hicks is currently serving her first term in the Ohio senate after serving two terms in the Ohio house.

The democrat has been breaking barriers for 35 years with just one intention in mind.

“It’s one of service and that it is not about me, it’s about what can I prepare for the next generation,” Hicks- Hudson said.

In 2015, as Toledo city council president, Hicks-Hudson stepped into the role of Toledo’s mayor in February after the passing of Mayor D. Michael Collins.

She became the first African-American female mayor in Toledo’s history – a position she did not seek but was encouraged to consider by another former Toledo mayor.

“Jack Ford was the one that challenged me to stay in that position because he said ‘what will history say about you and what would little girls think if when it looks too hard to do you don’t do it, and that you don’t accept the challenge’ and so I took that seriously and I took the first idea of this being the first black African-American woman mayor for the city as some thing of the banner,” Hicks-Hudson said.

Now as a state senator, with four years to make an impact, Senator Hicks-Hudson says her focus is your health, the health of Lake Erie, and Urban Agriculture.

“I will continue my quest to make urban agriculture just as important, just as relevant as rural agriculture is because Ohio is known as an agricultural state, and if we can turn some of these vacant lots into economic drivers we should be able to do that, and that’s one thing I’m working on,” Hicks-Hudson said.

Her goal is to continue to lay bricks for the generations to come to build upon.

“Are we giving a better inheritance to the future and that’s what I wanna be known for; is that I’ve done everything that I could to make sure that young women like you, younger women like your daughters, and your sons and eventually your grandchildren, and great grand, will know that the world has better because they’ve had examples of folks that I’ve tried to make the world better,” Hicks-Hudson said.

13abc salutes Senator Paula Hicks-Hudson and Black History Month.

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please include the title when you click here to report it.

Copyright 2023 WTVG. All rights reserved.