Bringing a bold vision, optimism and inclusion to city hall
After being elected as the 54th Mayor of Mississippi’s capital city, John Horhn went right to work. And has not stopped since, hitting the ground running.
Horhn was sworn in as Jackson’s mayor on July 1, in a ceremony led by U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson and attended by various other Mississippi public officials, including former Jackson Mayors J. Kane Ditto and Harvey Johnson, Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and former Mississippi Supreme Court justice Rueben Anderson, spoke at the ceremony. The attendees represented the type of inclusion the new Mayor seeks to bring into his orbit, helping move the city forward.
Previously, Horhn had served in the Mississippi State Senate as a Democrat from the 26th district from 1993 to 2025. He also had previously served as State Tourism Director from 1989 to 1992.
He was the Democratic nominee in the 2025 Jackson mayoral election, which he would go on to win after securing over 67% of the vote defeating the incumbent with numbers that certainly would indicate a mandate from the city’s citizens.
Horhn was born on February 8, 1955, in Goodman, Mississippi and has a family of five siblings His father. Charlie (who was also in attendance at his inauguration) was a labor organizer with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and his mother, Willistene, was a public school cafeteria worker. His family moved to Jackson when he was three weeks old and Horhn first grew up in Midtown before moving to Georgetown.
The family later moved to Virden, where he spent much of his youth. He attended Morrison Elementary School, serving as president of his class before graduating from the Jackson Public School system, as a Calloway High School grad in 1973.
“I had a great childhood,” recalled Horhn. “I was quite a bookworm, although I later took up tennis and was a three year letterman playing at Calloway. And, I continued playing for a couple of years in college, Centre College in Kentucky, where I received my Bachelor of Arts in English and Dramatic Arts in 1977.” He also later studied at Jackson State University and Duke University through both school’s leadership programs.
“I was torn between entering law as a profession or becoming an actor,” said Horhn. “Although I wanted to go to New York City or Los Angeles to pursue that career, my dad talked to me about staying in Mississippi to try and make a difference. I did leave for a while for college, but came back to try my hand at acting here because, in the mid-80s, Mississippi was somewhat of a hotbed for productions.”
Horhn worked as a youth job developer for the A. Philip Randolph Institute from 1978 to 1980. He then worked as the executive director for the Mississippi Cultural Arts Coalition from 1980 to 1981. “Mr. Randolph was one of my father’s heroes,” said Horhn of the former job. “In fact, my father was the second Black labor union president in the Mississippi.”
Afterward, Horhn joined the Mississippi Arts Commission as a program manager from 1981 to 1985. He became the state film commissioner in 1985 and served in that position until 1988. Starting in 1988, he worked under Governor Ray Mabus as the federal state programs director. In 1989, Horhn went on to become Mississippi’s tourism director, holding that position until 1992.
Among his early accomplishments, Horhn organized the Mississippi Blues Commission in 1991 to map important blues sites throughout the state and later co-sponsored legislation in 2004 to make it official in state law. Since 2011, Horhn has served as vice chairman of the Mississippi Blues Foundation, an organization created by the commission.
Politics was a part of Horhn’s time in school, having been elected to several student body leadership positions, but he first began to seriously entertain the idea of running for statewide office after conversations with his father.
“My dad has been instrumentall in the elections of hundreds of public officials, mainly Black but some White as well,” said Horhn. “He is still involved in voter registration to this day and remains a huge influence in my life. I helped him several times and also worked with various candidates, many of them well known, and found that I enjoyed that world and was actually fairly good in it.”
Horhn himself was first elected as a state senator in 1993, representing parts of Hinds and Madison counties. While in the Senate, he served as chair of the Economic Development Committee. Meanwhile, he would still act on occasion, including performing several times at New State Theater in Jackson. He remains a member of the Screen Actors’ Guild and has appeared in numerous TV and film projects.
While in the Senate, Horhn also sponsored and led the passage of bills authorizing more than $1billion in projects specifically to support the City of Jackson, including public facilities, hotels, museums, and water/sewer improvements. Horhn considers his crowning achievement in the Legislature to be the successful development of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the only state-supported civil rights museum in the United States, serving as the original author of that legislation.
In private business life, Horhn has worked as a business development consultant in healthcare, housing, engineering, and small business development.
Since officially taking office in July, Horhn—who had run for mayor of Jackson three previous times—said that his previous jobs led him to and prepared him for the position he’s in now. “It’s certainly very different from being in the Senate,” said Horhn. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been this busy in my life. I’m thankful to be in this position, though, and I had a lot of people praying for me as I was campaigning. The time was right and I intend to persevere for the city of Jackson. That said, being in the Senate was a walk in the park compared to being mayor of a metropolitan city.”
Horhn hit his 100th day in office on October 9. He points to his administration finding creative and innovative ways to elevate the city’s budget as one early success. “We found $40 million through a bond instrument that we’re pursuing,” said the Mayor. “This would allow us to leverage our Modernization Use Tax, or Internet Tax as it’s called. It will help us tremendously with infrastructure improvement and I don’t think anybody expected us to do this so early in the game. The City doesn’t have a bond rating after Standard and Poor’s pulled it last year. We’re working feverishly to get audits done and are making tremendous progress.
“We’ve also been more responsive in our building and permitting department which shows Jackson is open for business,” continued Horhn. “We have to change the culture of City government to get exactly where we need to be, and we will. Attracting and expanding business in Jackson is key for us moving forward.” The new administration has also been cleaning up the city and beautifying the downtown Jackson area, said Horhn.
“I believe we’ve brought a new optimism to the capital city, and that includes patching up relationships with our state and federal government partners,” added Horhn. “I’ve met with Governor Reeves and Lt. Governor Hoseman several times already and also have good relationships with all of the mayors in the surrounding towns and cities, having known and worked with those leaders for years during my time in the Senate. We’re being supported by these people. Plus, I think we now have a better relationship with our own City Council and also with our Washington delegation. The tone has been changed with our governmental partners.”
Horhn is also working hard to build up Jackson’s Public Works Department which he said was “decimated.”
“That’s going to take some time and effort, we know,” admitted Horhn. “We need to find a strong Public Works Director and that’s an ongoing search. We have a candidate in mind, but in the meantime we’re able to utilize Hinds County manpower through a Memorandum of Understanding to work on pothole repairs in the city, for example.”
These are just a few of the things Horhn and his administration has done and been working on in his first 100 days in office. The media and the city’s citizens are noticing, said Horhn, but added that he is still trying to do a better job of regaining confidence that had been lost.
“I attend as many city homeowners, neighborhood association and business meetings as I possibly can,” said Horhn. “I want to hear directly from the people and also solicit their advice. It’s a two-way street and a healthy exchange that we need.”
A year from now, Horhn said that he hopes there will be much less violence in the city—which is currently trending down, he noted—and an overall cleaner city. “I want to find around $1 million per Ward in Jackson to address the blight that has been in place for too long. I also believe that downtown Jackson will have a new, more impressive look. There are many potential accomplishments—including work we’re engaged in now in economic development— that we will be able to look back on as successes with the relationships we’re now forming,” he said.
Does the new Mayor have time to relax? “Well, I love fishing, mainly fresh water, but haven’t been able to get out much lately,” he said. “I’ve only been fishing twice this year but time has become a scarce commodity.”
Horhn is married to the former Lydia Gail Cole and they are the proud parents of two children.