Career
Jenkins succeeded Roy A. Burrell, who was term-limited in the primary election held on October 24, 2015. In the fall of 1994, Jenkins and Burrell ran against each other for the District G seat on the Shreveport City Council. In 2014, Burrell announced on KEEL radio in Shreveport that he would run for mayor of Shreveport to succeed the term-limited African-American Cedric Glover.
Then Hightower, the mayor from 1998 to 2006, decided not to seek a comeback in the office.
Victory went instead to still another African-American candidate, the retired educator Ollie Tyler. Glover, meanwhile, returns in January 2016 to the state House in the District 4 seat which he formerly held.
That position was vacated by Representative Patrick Williams. In the 2015 primary, Jenkins defeated fellow Democrat Terence Vinson for the right to succeed Representative Burrell.
Jenkins polled 3,505 votes (606 percent) to Vinson"s 2,282 (394 percent).
