About
Refugee. Organizer. Mayor. Storyteller.
Mike Elliott is a Liberian-American public servant, entrepreneur, and community organizer who served as Mayor of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota from 2019 to 2023 — the city's first Black mayor and the first Liberian-American mayor.
Early Life
From Liberia to Brooklyn Center
Mike was born in Liberia and came to the United States at age eleven, a refugee of the Liberian Civil War. His family settled in Brooklyn Center — today home to one of the largest Liberian-American communities in the country — where his mother worked three jobs and his grandmother helped raise him.
He attended Palmer Lake Elementary and Brooklyn Center High School, then graduated from Hamline University with a B.A. in International Management and a minor in Political Science.
As a teenager, he was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car after being wrongly accused while playing in a park — an experience he has described as formative to his understanding of policing, and one he carried with him into office.
Community Roots
Two decades of service before office
Long before running for mayor, Mike built a record of community work — founding an education nonprofit, launching a youth civic council, and serving on local boards and commissions.
- Fastforward EducationFounder (2002)
- Brooklyns Youth CouncilFounding Advisor (2009–2011)
- Brooklyn Peacemaker CenterBoard (2003–2005)
- Community Emergency Assistance Program (CEAP)Board (2011–2017)
- ACLU of MinnesotaBoard
- Brooklyn Bridge AllianceMember
- Brooklyn Center Charter CommissionMember
Alongside his civic work, Mike has been a business owner for over a decade and is a certified full-stack software engineer.
The Road to City Hall
145 votes. Then 55%.
Mike first ran for mayor in 2014 — and lost to the incumbent by just 145 votes. Rather than walk away, he kept organizing, crediting the campaign with bringing African immigrants and people of color into local politics for the first time.
Four years later he ran again and won with roughly 55% of the vote, becoming the first Black mayor and the first Liberian-American mayor in Brooklyn Center history. At his inauguration — where Liberian and American flags stood side by side — the Rev. Francis Tabla told the crowd: “This victory is not just for Liberians, but for Africans and all of us.”
In Office · 2019 – 2023
Leading through a national moment
On April 11, 2021 — ten miles from the Derek Chauvin trial — Brooklyn Center officer Kim Potter shot and killed Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop. Mike called it “heartbreaking and just unfathomable,” and led.
The city council granted him command authority over the police department. He released the body-camera footage, accepted the resignations of the police chief and the officer, ordered an end to rubber bullets and tear gas against protesters, and asked Attorney General Keith Ellison's office to take over the case to ensure transparency.
Drawing on Liberian village traditions of mediation, he took government to the people — listening sessions in the streets and city council meetings held outdoors, in front of the police station.
On May 15, 2021, the council passed the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Act by a 4–1 vote — creating a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention, an unarmed civilian traffic enforcement department, and a mental-health community response team, and ending custodial arrests for low-level offenses. The ACLU called it “sweeping and unprecedented” and urged every city in America to follow Brooklyn Center's lead.
After concluding his term in January 2023, Mike was selected as a Bush Foundation Fellow — a 24-month fellowship to study systems change and proven public-safety models, so that Brooklyn Center's approach can inform work far beyond one city.
In the Press
Selected coverage
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