Virnetta Anderson
Virnetta Anderson, née Nelson was an American-Canadian community activist and politician, who was elected to Calgary City Council in 1974 as the city's first Black Canadian municipal councillor.
Born in Monticello, Arkansas, and raised in Hot Springs, she moved to Calgary in 1952 after her husband, Ezzrett Anderson, was drafted by the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League. In the city she became active in the United Church of Canada and the Rotary Club, became president of the city's Meals on Wheels in 1971, and served on the board of Calgary's United Way chapter.
She was elected to Calgary's city council in 1974. Her projects as a city councillor included a fact-finding mission to Germany to research innovations in public transit as part of the early development of the city's CTrain system, serving on the committee that conducted the original feasibility study on the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts, and opposing the extension of Sarcee Trail across the Weaselhead Flats. Mayor Rod Sykes would later praise her work on council by saying that "She was one of the very best aldermen I ever had in three city councils. She never played council games, which often left her isolated, but she was intellectually honest, and when she spoke, she spoke common sense."
She was defeated in her reelection bid in 1977 and returned to community involvement, including sitting on the board of directors of the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts and serving on various municipal advisory committees.
