On March 23, 1969, Floyd C. Miller (1902-1985) is appointed by the City Council as Mayor of Seattle to fill the term of Dorm Braman (1901-1980) who resigned to join the Nixon Administration as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Miller is the president of the City Council and announces that he will not be a candidate for mayor in the election the following November. Miller had been elected to the Seattle City Council three times and to the State Legislature seven times.
Some African American community leaders opposed Miller's appointment due to his past votes against open housing and against fluoridation (1968), but he also supported a Fair Employment Protection Bill and was once labeled by the Municipal League as "pink" (liberal). He was elected by unanimous voice vote on the second ballot. Miller served nine months and was succeeded by Wes Uhlman (b. 1935), who was elected in November 1969.
Sources:
Seattle Magazine, May 1969, pp. 21-26; The Seattle Times, March 26, 1969, p. 1; Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 272.
Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that
encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both
HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any
reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this
Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For
more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact
the source noted in the image credit.
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided
By:
The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins
| Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry
| 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle
| City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach
Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private
Sponsors and Visitors Like You