After two terms on the Hillsborough County Commission and amid her 10 years as elections supervisor, Iorio went back to school to pursue a new challenge: a master's degree in history with an emphasis on the civil rights movement in the South.

She did it one class at a time, earning her master's in 2001. Along the way she learned about Tampa's whites-only city primary elections, which lasted until after World War II, and studied how the city virtually ignored The Scrub - a slum north of downtown populated mostly by blacks living in crushing poverty.

``As I really began to delve into history, I began to wonder if I had done enough to warrant a place in the pages of history,'' Iorio says. ``I really began to question my own role as a public servant.''

Six years after taking her first history class at the University of South Florida, Iorio was elected mayor - in part on the strength of a campaign promise to be a champion of equality. She returned to the issue again when she took office in April 2003.

``I want children growing up in every one of Tampa's neighborhoods to see life full of possibilities - not limited by economic circumstances,'' Iorio said in her inaugural address. ``We must tackle our urban problems with meaningful change.''

First, she ordered a crackdown on drug dealing and code violators in east Tampa. By the time it was over, 435 people had been arrested and 383 code citations had been issued for such things as derelict vehicles and overgrown yards.

Next, she promised to focus on the area's economic redevelopment. In November, she launched a search for a developer willing to help reshape the Central Park area, where dilapidated public housing between downtown and Ybor City stands as a monument to The Scrub.

``As a student of history, you can see that this has its roots in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s,'' Iorio says. ``I don't think I would be mayor today if I hadn't gotten that degree.''

From here on, though, the challenge gets more difficult. Arresting drug dealers was the easy part. Reviving a depressed neighborhood is more complicated.

Redeveloping Central Park could produce new homes and businesses, for example, but it could also displace those living there.

Meanwhile, the pressure remains to do more.

Many blacks continue to feel disenfranchised by city government, says James Evans, chairman of the Mayor's African American Advisory Council. The council has advised Tampa mayors for 20 years.

``The No. 1 issue is employment,'' Evans says. ``Until you have instilled hope where you have removed the drug users and drug dealers, [they] will emerge again.''

Iorio's History Lesson

Iorio's graduate work included a paper she wrote on one of the most bleak chapters of Tampa's past, the White Municipal Party, a whites-only political organization formed in 1908. It set up a one-party primary election system that excluded blacks and dominated Tampa politics for almost 50 years.

Blacks were not being denied the right to vote, whites defending the system said; they could still cast ballots in the general election.

But with just one party closed to blacks allowed to field candidates for the primary, the general election was meaningless. The victors were decided in the primary.

The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed whites-only primaries in 1944, a decision that allowed blacks to vote in Tampa's 1947 city primary. However, to do so they had to join the White Municipal Party first. The system finally collapsed when the Legislature abolished city primaries in 1953.

``The legacy of the White Municipal Party is one of discrimination and of lost opportunity,'' Iorio wrote. ``For all of its uniqueness, Tampa was ... just one more Southern city seeking to relegate blacks to second-class citizenship.''

Today's problems in east Tampa and Central Park are rooted in this history, Iorio says now.

Tampa ``still is not well-integrated,'' she continues. Nor has the city treated its poorest neighborhoods as well as it has others.

Against this framework, the mayor wants to open a new police station in east Tampa to continue discouraging the drug trade.

In addition, the city has designated the neighborhood a community redevelopment area, which allows the city to reinvest locally generated tax money in the neighborhood for road repairs, water lines and other infrastructure improvements.

The hope is that this will help attract developers who will build homes or job-producing businesses. The mayor also has her economic development team working on business recruitment.

She is still drawing fire, though. City Councilman Kevin White, for one, wishes Iorio would share more of the specifics of her revival efforts and enlist the help of more community leaders. White represents east Tampa and is one of two black council members.

``The administrative is so secretive about what they are doing,'' he says. ``I don't know what is going on.''

Diversifying The Work Force

If reviving a neighborhood takes time, Iorio has more control over making the city's work force more diverse. But almost two years into her tenure, significant gaps persist.

Blacks account for about 26 percent of Tampa's population. Hispanics account for about 19 percent.

However, just 12 percent of Tampa's police officers are black. About 14 percent are Hispanic.

At the fire department, about 8 percent of the work force is black, while Hispanics account for about 20 percent.

About 71 percent of Tampa's police officers and firefighters are white.

Among city supervisors, about 68 percent are white, 19 percent are black and 11 percent are Hispanic.

Iorio says she has taken steps to change those ratios. She points to programs that she believes will lead to more minority hiring at the police and fire departments, and she says the fact that she has put minorities or women into four of the top 11 jobs at city hall besides hers should create a ``trickle-down'' effect that she hopes will lead to still more minority hiring.

``People should look to their government as a mirror image of their population,'' Iorio says. ``It is fair for the public to expect that.''

Commendable thinking, say people such as White, but more is needed.

``The city has made strides, but it still has far to go,'' White says.

If more isn't accomplished, questions could follow Iorio into the next campaign, says Sam Horton, president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In a city that for so long neglected blacks, however, Horton adds that Iorio brings hope for change.

``The present mayor has embraced the entire city,'' Horton says. ``She seems to realize you can't be a great city unless all your citizens participate.''

Reporter Andy Reid can be reached at (813) 259-8409.