Michael Scott Rawlings (born August 25, 1954) is an American businessman and politician who was the 59th Mayor of Dallas, Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, he won the nonpartisan 2011 Dallas mayoral election defeating former Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle.[1][2][3][4][5] He was reelected in 2015 by defeating Dallas lawyer Marcos Ronquillo.
Rawlings was CEO of Pizza Hut from 1997 to 2002, and CEO of the Tracy-Locke ad agency.[6]
Rawlings garnered national attention during the Ebola outbreak, the July 7th, 2016, ambush on Dallas police officers, and a dispute over the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.[12] On the question of Confederate Statue Removal, Rawlings stated in August 2017 that Confederate statues in Dallas city parks are "monuments of propaganda" and called for a task force to decide what should be done with them.[13] Rawlings pushed for the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in a city park.[14]
At the 2018 Conference of Mayors, Rawlings, who was known as a supporter of the arts in Dallas, received the 2018 National Award for Local Arts from the United States Conference of Mayors and Americans for the Arts in Washington, DC.[15]
