Paul McKinney is a former Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 member of the Pennsylvania State Senate

Pennsylvania State Senate

The Pennsylvania State Senate has been meeting since 1791. It is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. Senators are elected for four year terms, staggered every two years such...

, serving from 1975 to 1982.

Early life

McKinney was born in 1923 in Albany, GA. In 1941 he moved to Darby, PA and became a Merchant Marine and eventually settled in Philadelphia in the late 1940s. He married Bessie Grayson in 1949.

Business Life

McKinney owned several business, his first being a restaurant and catering business with his wife Bessie. In the 1960s he owned and operated a television sales and repair shop. In 1966 he became one Philadelphia's first African American U.S. Postal Service independent contractors.

Political Life

McKinney served as a Democratic Party Committeeman and Ward Chairman of West Philadelphia's 60th Ward for a number of years. In 1974 he was elected as Pennsylvania's the first African American state senator.