ATLANTA — Atlanta elected a new mayor on Tuesday and while the results won’t be official until certified, Andre Dickens celebrated the win at his watch party at around 11:00 p.m. after the Associated Press declared him the winner.
“We gather in victory for Atlanta,” he said from the stage.
Standing in a group of family, supporters and friends, Dickens talked about how he sees this win as a uniquely Atlanta experience.
“This is a uniquely Atlanta story. How does a boy from Adamsville, where they give you a 4% chance of making it to the upper-middle class? How does this happen in the city of Atlanta? I was counted out way back then,” he said.
During his campaign, Dickens called himself a son of Atlanta having grown up in Southwest Atlanta and attending college at Georgia Tech and then Georgia State. The engineer said he was the first person in his family to go to college.
He thanked his mom for keeping him on the right track.
“My mom Sylvia, I thank her for keeping me in school and keeping me disciplined and keeping me focused,” Dickens exclaimed.
He said when he was a child, he told his mom he wanted to be mayor of Atlanta one day, though they disagree on how old he was when he said it.
“Look at us now,” he said to cheers.
Dickens would be the 61st mayor of the City of Atlanta. He was joined on stage with outgoing Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms who endorsed him in the runoff election.
Watch his full victory speech, here.