And welcome to another episode of the Bakari Sellers podcast.

Today we have with us a very special guest.

I have to say a friend of the pod.

She and my executive producer are really good friends and I don't know about some of the people

she rolls with but I can tell you that she is awesome Phyllis Dickerson what's happening how are you?

I'm good I'm good bick. How are you? I'm good. I'm good

Vakari. How are you? I'm doing well. Phyllis has the amazing task of

leading the African American Mayors Association which as I tell folk all the

time being a mayor is one of the most difficult jobs in America,

but we start each episode in the same way, and I think our listeners like it.

We have our guest walk us through the arc of their careers, and you've done a little bit of everything in politics from working in government to advising elected officials to your philanthropic work to now leading this organization.

How did you get into politics and who are some of the folks

who you worked with who helped shape your view of public service?

So I started in politics because I had a limited services

contract with the city of Little Rock to plan the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine.

I graduated from Lower Rock Central High, so it was a great honor for me to do that.

And at the end of the 18 month contract, the city manager came to me and said,

I heard you would like to stay. I said, oh, somebody lied to you because I came to

the government. I didn't know what the RFP and the RFP was, so to say the least, they assigned a city attorney to me to make sure that I didn't do the wrong thing.

And so I ended up staying.

And by that time we had a newly elected mayor, his name was Mark Stodala, and he asked me to be his chief of staff. And so I became his chief of staff, and then when then he finished his time after 12 years and then the new mayor came on board newly elected

Mayor Frank Scott Jr and then oh my gosh shout out Frank Yes, and then Frank asked me to help him with his transition of his team.

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