Cory Booker
Cory Booker
36th Mayor of Newark, New Jersey
Incumbent
Assumed office
July 1, 2006
Preceded by
Sharpe James
Born
April 27, 1969 (1969-04-27)
Washington, D.C.
Political party Democratic Party
Alma mater
Yale Law School (J.D.)
Oxford University (B.A.)
Stanford University (M.A.)
Stanford University (B.A.)
Profession
Lawyer
Website
Mayor Cory A. Booker
Cory Anthony Booker (born April 27, 1969)
is the current Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.
He is a Democratic politician and former Ne-
wark Councilman and community activist
who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2002
against longtime incumbent Sharpe James.
Booker ran again in 2006 and won a sweep-
ing victory against Ronald Rice to become
the 36th mayor of Newark.
Background
The son of civil rights activists, Cary and
Carolyn Booker, who were among the first
African-American executives at IBM, Booker
was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in
the predominantly white, affluent town of
Harrington Park in Bergen County, New Jer-
sey.[1] He is an alumnus of Northern Valley
Regional High School at Old Tappan.[2] Book-
er
traveled west
to study at Stanford
University, where he earned a B.A. in politic-
al science in 1991 and an M.A. in sociology
the following year. He played varsity football
— he made the All–Pacific Ten Academic
team; — and was elected to the council of
(four) presidents. While he was there, he ran
The Bridge, a student-run crisis hotline and
organized help for youth in East Palo Alto
from Stanford students.[3]
He won a Rhodes Scholarship and studied
at The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he
was awarded an honors degree in modern
history in 1994. While at Oxford he became
friends with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and
Rachel Maddow. He became the President of
the L’Chaim Society, a Jewish group founded
by Boteach, to signify his commitment to end
tensions
between
Jews
and
African
Americans.
After Oxford, he obtained a J.D. from Yale
Law School in 1997 and, while there, started
and operated free legal clinics for low-income
residents of New Haven. He was also