Wheeler, Albert Harold, 1915-1994

Albert H. Wheeler (1915 – April 4, 1994) was an American life-sciences professor and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the first African American mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan, serving in the office from 1975 to 1978.

Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, he attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, majoring in biology. He then studied for his master's in microbiology at Iowa State University in Iowa. He moved to Ann Arbor to continue his studies, working toward a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. After completing the doctoral degree, Wheeler took a job as a research associate at the university. In 1952, he became an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, and eventually became the university's first tenured African-American professor. Influenced by experiences of discrimination at the university and in attempting to secure a home mortgage in Ann Arbor, Wheeler also worked as a civil-rights activist on campus and in the city. Wheeler, who was a Roman Catholic, took leave from the university in the early 1970s to serve in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Wheeler first made a bid for the office of Ann Arbor mayor in April 1975. Running as a Democrat, he unseated the Republican incumbent mayor, James E. Stephenson. That election used the instant-runoff voting system, and it represented the first-ever use of IRV in a U.S. mayoral contest. During the early and mid-1970s, the local, left-wing Human Rights Party (HRP) had gained a strong foothold in Ann Arbor municipal politics, electing several candidates to the city council. With the introduction of a strong third party in Ann Arbor, concerns grew among Democrats and HRP supporters that the city's progressive vote would be split, thus allowing Republicans to win offices on pluralities. During the April 1975 mayoral race, the only Ann Arbor contest using IRV, the Republican incumbent, Stephenson, received 49% of the first-choice ballots, leading Wheeler, who received 40%, and the HRP candidate Carol Ernst, who received 11%. However, since no candidate received a majority, IRV rules came into effect. Most HRP voters had ranked Wheeler as their second choice, and these votes moved to the Democrat's column, making Wheeler the winner by a slim margin of 121 votes. Ann Arbor voters repealed the system in an April 1976 special election.

In 1977, Wheeler ran for reelection, facing Republican challenger Louis D. Belcher. Wheeler won the election by a margin of a single vote, prevailing by a count of just 10,660 to 10,659. The election results, however, were challenged in court because twenty people who lived just outside city limits had voted without knowing that they were ineligible to cast ballots in Ann Arbor. As the court challenge dragged on through 1977, Mayor Wheeler agreed to a new citywide vote—in effect, a "re-do" of the contested election—in order to end the contentious legal process. Belcher agreed, and the new election was held in 1978. This time, Belcher triumphed, ousting Wheeler from office and becoming mayor.

Wheeler died on April 4, 1994.