SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
It's the end of an era in Charleston, S.C. Mayor Joe Riley is retiring after 40 years in office. His tenure has seen the transformation of downtown Charleston from a decaying urban center into a top cultural and tourist destination. NPR's Debbie Elliot has this profile of the nation's longest-serving mayor. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: We incorrectly identify Joseph Riley as the longest-serving mayor in America. In fact, multiple people have served as mayors of American cities longer than Riley's 40-year stint as mayor of Charleston.]
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: In most cities you find buildings named for mayors. But in downtown Charleston, look for the driveway brick.
JOE RILEY: That's Riley Red. It's not because my hard head. That's just the color.
ELLIOTT: Joe Riley's hard head does come into play because run-of-the-mill brick wouldn't do. He had this brick made in just the right hue to compliment the historic city's palette, and harken back to brick carriageways.
RILEY: But we can walk - this way is good.
ELLIOTT: On a tour, you see Riley's imprint all over the Charleston landscape - from the paint color at City Hall to the gravel mix for park paths. Then there's Charleston Place, a retail and hotel complex once dubbed Riley's Folly when he first proposed incentives for redeveloping a vacant lot in the heart of downtown.
RILEY: King Street, our main street, which in the '70s was almost gone, is now on the list as one of the 10 best shopping streets in America.
RILEY: This one redevelopment did it.
ELLIOTT: Wearing his signature horn-rimmed glasses, the 72-year-old Riley is clearly passionate about the way his city looks and feels. He is known among the nation's mayors as an urban design guru.
RILEY: A city is an ecosystem. And if your ecosystem is not healthy then you work to restore it.
ELLIOTT: Charleston was not healthy when Joseph P. Riley, Jr. was first elected in 1975. Downtown was lifeless. And in the first decade after the civil rights movement, racial divisions were laid bare. He was a 32-year-old state lawmaker at the time. Back at City Hall, Riley recalls the election as a turning point.
RILEY: Either there would be a bridge builder running for mayor or there would be a bitter election that probably pitted an African-American against a white conservative.
ELLIOTT: He won, and for the first time included African-Americans in city administration. Riley earned a nickname for his efforts - LBJ.
RILEY: People said that behind my back. It stood for Little Black Joe. And, you know, I never worried about that because what I knew I needed to do was substantially be communicating to the African-American community that this city was theirs.
ELLIOTT: Riley is a Democrat with staying power even as Republicans have come to dominate South Carolina politics. He first gained national attention in 1989 dealing with the destruction wrought by Hurricane Hugo. His crisis leadership was again in the spotlight last year when a gunman killed nine people and Emmanuel AME Church in what authorities described as a racially motivated attack. Riley says that was his most challenging time as mayor. But he says he was proud to see Charleston respond to an act of hate with love and forgiveness.
RILEY: What the families did and what the citizens of Charleston did was in our saddest, most heartbreaking time, they made it the city's finest hour.
ELLIOTT: Riley has a reputation for being personable and accessible to average citizens. He exudes the southern charm his city is known for. Charleston is enjoying a modern cultural renaissance with its noted art and food scene and a booming tourism trade.
Rebecca Darwin is the founder and CEO of Garden and Gun magazine, which is headquartered in Charleston.
REBECCA DARWIN: Companies are growing here. It's really become kind of a creative town.
ELLIOTT: Darwin credits the mayor for making it a livable yet vibrant city.
DARWIN: Because of Joe Riley, this is an incredible place for people to live. And so when it came time for me to recruit the best talent in the world to come here and work for Garden and Gun, a little struggling magazine at the time that could not pay New York salaries, and we were able to get those people to come here because of the quality of life in this place and the excitement that was surrounding Charleston.
ELLIOTT: There's a new $140 million performing arts center, an expansive waterfront park and a minor-league baseball stadium named for the mayor. It's called The Joe. But Riley has had to carefully navigate preserving the nearly 350-year-old port city with progress. Some are critical of what they called the Riley machine. He's used a strong-mayor form of government to push his vision of Charleston. He's been up against preservationists, developers and most recently old-line residents who don't want to see a cruise ship dock in the Charleston Harbor. Others say he's overseen a revitalization that didn't benefit everyone.
BARNEY BLAKENEY: Charleston is, like a lot of places unfortunately, is a tale of two cities.
ELLIOTT: Barney Blakeney writes for the city's African-American newspaper, The Charleston Chronicle.
BLAKENEY: In one aspect, Joe Riley has been the person who revitalized Charleston at a time of crisis.
ELLIOTT: But for African-Americans, Blakeney says, there's a bigger picture. The city's overall population has grown, but the share of black residents has shrunk dramatically from 45 percent in 1970 to about 25 percent now.
BLAKENEY: Today, as he leaves office, the city is 70 percent white. Joe Riley totally flipped the racial demographics in Charleston during his 40-year tenure.
ELLIOTT: Mayor Riley acknowledges gentrification has been a concern but says maintaining affordable housing has been a priority. His latest initiative is aimed at recognizing the role that race has played in Charleston's story. The city has acquired this site along the Cooper River where Gadsden's Wharf once stood, dating to the late 1700s.
RILEY: It was huge. And it was the primary wharf to which enslaved Africans were brought.
ELLIOTT: He calls it a sacred place.
RILEY: Right where we're standing, in the last three years, 70,000 enslaved Africans were brought right here to be sold. Population of the city was only 20,000 then.
ELLIOTT: In his retirement, Riley plans to help raise money to build the African-American Museum. Charleston's first new mayor in four decades will be sworn in on Monday. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Charleston, S.C.