Meet Mayor Rex Richardson

As Long Beach's 29th Mayor, Rex Richardson has transformed the city's greatest challenges into unprecedented opportunities, bringing leadership rooted in personal experience with working families' struggles and a proven commitment to expanding opportunity for all residents.

Mayor Richardson's story reflects the American Dream realized through determination and community support. He moved around a lot growing up. His mother was a union welder at General Motors — her own mother had integrated schools in the South. His father served in the Air Force. The family moved when work moved, and stability wasn't something Rex could take for granted. He came to California on a Greyhound bus. He knew what it meant to worry about housing, to stretch a paycheck, to wonder if the next city would be better than the last.

With support from public schools and community programs, Rex became the first in his family to attend college, serving as Student Body President at Cal State Dominguez Hills. After graduating, he worked as a community organizer with SEIU Local 721, advocating for blue-collar workers and building the coalition skills that would define his career. At 25, he became the first person in his family to purchase a home — a house in North Long Beach, where he and his family still live today.

Rex's path to public service began as Chief of Staff to Councilmember Steve Neal, where he built bridges between neighborhood associations, labor unions, business groups, and faith communities — a signature approach he's carried into every role since. In 2014, he won his City Council race with 73% of the vote, becoming the youngest council member in Long Beach history. During his council tenure, he brought President Obama's My Brother's Keeper Initiative to Long Beach and created the PATH program, which steers young people away from incarceration and toward job training and education.

In 2022, Rex was elected Mayor of Long Beach — the first African American to hold the office in the city's history.

His record reflects the values he was raised with: work hard, deliver results, and make sure opportunity isn't just for the few. Under his leadership, Long Beach has created more than 4,100 good-paying jobs, achieved its first decline in street homelessness in nearly a decade, hired more than 250 new police officers, approved over 5,000 housing units, and is preparing to host 18 Olympic and Paralympic sports in 2028. Long Beach was named the Most Business Friendly City in LA County — besting 87 other cities.

Rex serves as Chair of the LA County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, past President of the Southern California Association of Governments, and Advisory Board Member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors — carrying Long Beach's priorities to regional and national tables. And when the federal government threatens cuts to the services Long Beach families depend on, Rex fights back — strengthening immigrant protections, securing legal resources, and making clear that Long Beach will never be an instrument of policies that tear families apart.

Mayor Richardson and his wife, Dr. Nina Richardson, are homeowners in North Long Beach, where they reside with their two daughters.