Newcastle has a new first citizen, after the first non-white lord mayor in the city’s history handed over his chains.
Karen Robinson was appointed to Newcastle’s highest ceremonial position on Wednesday afternoon, as Habib Rahman’s term in office came to an end. The Wallsend-born mum-of-one said it was a “huge privilege and responsibility” to serve as lord mayor and pledged to use her role to celebrate all that was great about Tyneside after a devastating couple of years during the Covid pandemic, with a particular focus on food and the arts.
But the Liberal Democrat councillor, who was first elected to the city council in 2004, said her elevation to lord mayor was “bittersweet” as the title had instead been due to pass to her friend Anita Lower, the highly-respected former opposition leader who died last year. Coun Robinson, who represents the Dene and South Gosforth ward, added: “I take office when our city is facing real changes. Life has returned but it is still not clear what the new normal will be.
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“But Newcastle has faced and overcome challenges in the past. Sad, bad, and issues that make us mad will always exist and we as a collective will always be fighting them. That said, I want to celebrate the good things – the talent that comes from Newcastle, the great things about Newcastle, the things that bring us joy and have helped us over the last couple of years.”
She will raise money for five charities during her year as mayor: LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity AKT, Show Racism The Red Card, Northern Roots, Help Musicians, and the Twisting Ducks Theatre Company. The city council’s new leader, Nick Kemp, said Coun Robinson would be a “wonderful ambassador for the city” and that her predecessor had lived up to his promise to be a “voice for the voiceless” during his term.
Last year, Coun Rahman became the first black, Asian, or minority ethnic person to occupy the lord mayor’s seat in the civic role’s 800-year history. The Elswick ward councillor moved to Tyneside with his mother and six brothers from Bangladesh in 1985 at the age of 12 and vowed to use his position to combat discrimination in the city.
Coun Rahman’s father, Azizur, was killed in 1977 just 10 days after moving to the North East, stabbed in the Wallsend restaurant where he worked by a white customer. The outgoing lord mayor told colleagues on Wednesday that his great motivation in taking the role had been to make his mother happy.
He said: “She was in pain for far too long. I saw her most happy at my inauguration last year and totally at ease, relaxed, and safe when she visited Wallsend with her boys. Mum could not wait to go to Bangladesh to visit my dad’s grave and tell her husband that her son is the first citizen of this amazing city and that she and her boys are safe and loved.”
Coun Rahman added: “Contrary to what some think or believe of me or what I stand for, I believe I have demonstrated that this black Muslim does not just stand for racial and religious justice but I have, I did, and I will always fight for justice, fairness, and equality for people of all protected characteristics.”
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