by Lynette Hazelton and Video Jenna Miller and Lauren Schneiderman
Published May 1, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

It takes a neighborhood to raise a mayor

A candidate’s political platform is not built in a vacuum but shaped by life experience. Neighborhoods do more than just form candidates — they are critical in "raising" the candidate up and into the public office they seek. This video series — part of the Every Voice, Every Vote project — takes each of the Democratic candidates running to be the city’s 100th Mayor back to their first neighborhoods, and the neighborhoods that, if they are lucky, will help them secure a victory.

 

Watch other candidate videos:

• Amen Brown
• Warren Bloom
• Allan Domb
• Jeff Brown
• Rebecca Rhynhart
• Helen Gym
• Cherelle Parker

James DeLeon, who was born and raised in West Philadelphia, is a retired municipal judge but has had a peripatetic professional life that included stints as disco club owner, member of the Coast Guard, and playwright.

But it’s his time on the bench that left him deeply perplexed about why the city’s judicial branch has been constantly left out of the debate on one of the most significant issues of this 2023mayor’s race — public safety.

“I have had shotguns aimed at me. I have had handguns aimed at me. I have had a hit put on me, you know?” he told The Inquirer. “So all of these particular situations that I’ve had shaped my policies on trying to reduce gun violence and save lives.

“And that’s why I came up with my local incident management system, which is a set of policies and procedures that enables the city government to more effectively combat gun violence by enabling the necessary responders to manage more effectively the root causes of gun violence.”

» READ MORE: Watch all candidate videos from the series here.