First Black woman to be Petersburg mayor remembered as trailblazer, mentor and friend

by Bill Atkinson via https://www.progress-index.com/

Prior to becoming a force in Petersburg civil rights and politics, Florence Farley was also the state’s first licensed Black psychologist in Virginia

 In 2022. Treska Wilson-Smith lost two mothers — her biological mother passed away last March, and her “mentor” mother died Sunday morning.

“It becomes a lot to take in,” Wilson-Smith said Sunday night.

Her mentor was Dr. Florence Saunders Farley, who died Sunday at the age of 95 following an undisclosed illness. Like Wilson-Smith, Farley represented Petersburg’s Ward 1 for many years on City Council. Farley also was the city’s first Black woman mayor, and she presided over council in the 1980s when the loss of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company and the retail base signaled the start of a decades-long fiscal crisis for Petersburg.

“I have known her since I was around 11…

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