Emanuel Cleaver

The Reverend Emanuel Cleaver, II (born October 26, 1944) is a United Methodist pastor and American Democratic politician from the state of Missouri. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in November 2004 to represent the Fifth Congressional District of Missouri (map).

Cleaver took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives at the start of the 109th United States Congress on January 4, 2005. Born in Waxahachie, Texas, Cleaver grew up in public housing in Wichita Falls, Texas. After his graduation from Prairie View A&M University, Cleaver moved to Kansas City, Missouri. He founded a branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Kansas City and received a Master of Divinity degree from St. Paul School of Theology. Cleaver served a city councilman in Kansas City from 1979 to 1991, and was the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri for two terms, from 1991 until 1999. He was the first African American mayor in that city's history.

In the U.S. House election on November 2, 2004, Cleaver defeated Republican party challenger Jeanne Patterson. For ten years, the Fifth Congressional District of Missouri had been represented in the U.S. House by Democrat Karen McCarthy, who announced in late 2003 that she would not be seeking another term.

Missouri's Fifth Congressional District is located in the Kansas City metropolitan area and is primarily Jackson County.

External links

• Cleaver's campaign website

• Cleaver's biography (PDF file}