With family roots in St. Paul’s historically black Rondo community, Melvin Carter III is running a mayoral campaign that he says harks back to St. Paul’s past and embraces a more diverse future.

His family, which lost property when construction of Interstate 94 ran through St. Paul, experienced firsthand the city’s historical missteps when it comes to racial inequities. They’ve also benefited from St. Paul’s openness to embrace growth and change.

Carter is fond of saying that as St. Paul’s population grows, the city cannot grow out. It must literally grow up.

“We’ve added 20,000 people to our city in the last seven years, and we’re projected to add another 25,000 by 2030,” said Carter. “What we need is a whole lot more jobs, a whole lot more housing and economic development to give us the tax base to sustain our growing population. We’re a landlocked city. (Without density), we’ll always be in this cycle of whether to cut services or increase taxes.”

His great-grandfather’s family fled to Minnesota from Paris, Texas, a town that made history for burning a black worker alive at the stake in 1893.

St. Paul lore has it that Carter’s grandfather, a railroad porter and jazz musician, once trumpeted the jazz titan Dizzy Gillespie to a standstill in a musical duel, causing Gillespie to pack up his things and leave the club in a huff. Melvin Carter I’s name is on the wall of the Minnesota Music Cafe on Payne Avenue.

His father, retired police Sgt. Melvin Carter II, a 28-year veteran of the St. Paul Police Department, went on to found Save Our Sons, a nonprofit that mentors young black males in juvenile facilities. His mother, Toni Carter, a former school teacher and St. Paul School Board chair, has served as a Ramsey County Commissioner since March 2005.

And Carter — a Central High School track star who once dreamed of running in the Olympics — has his own history of public service. He was a legislative aide to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman for a year before being elected to the St. Paul City Council, where he represented Ward 1 from January 2008 to June 2013.

Carter, who spent the past four years as an early-education aide to his most famous backer — Gov. Mark Dayton — has impressed supporters with his knowledge of the city and desire to see it expand.

“I think he’ll do well,” said Nick Khaliq, a former St. Paul firefighter and chair of the St. Paul NAACP. “He’s more than ready. He’s been involved. He certainly has the compassion and the dedication and the commitment.”

Khaliq said that as both the son of a police officer, and as a black man in St. Paul, Carter brings unique perspective that will cut through “the politics of fear” and offer a balanced approach to policing and public safety.

Carter, who has two daughters from a previous marriage, married Sakeena Futrell-Carter, an advanced-practice nurse in women’s health and mother of three, this summer. The couple lives in the Summit-University neighborhood.

A LEAP OF FAITH?

Given his decision to leave local office midterm for more-lucrative state employment, some critics worry about his follow-through. Other than launching the St. Paul Promise Neighborhood in 2010 — a social and educational initiative that seeks funding opportunities in the Summit-University area — does the 38-year-old Carter have the experience to run a growing city of more than 300,000 people?

“I really like Melvin Carter’s objectives, but I have seen little evidence he can accomplish it,” said Kevin Gallatin, who has been active in Highland neighborhood organizing. “Melvin’s campaign is based on hope that he’ll demonstrate profound skill as an executive. I’m rooting for him, but it’s a leap of faith.”

Meanwhile, his repeated calls for police reform — and his insistence that the St. Paul Police Department differentiate between passive and active resistance toward officers in its codes of conduct, and retool training appropriately — has angered the St. Paul Police Federation. The union is backing former St. Paul City Council member Pat Harris.

RELATED: St. Paul police union head apologizes if comments ‘revictimize’ Melvin Carter’s family

“There’s no duty now to de-escalate in our manual,” Carter said. “We need to clarify that an officer’s job is to maintain the peace, and that means whenever possible to de-escalate.”

Carter, who unveiled a police reform and police-community relations strategy in October, said the city can do more to diversify the police force, hire city residents as officers and make more public the work of the St. Paul Civilian Review Board, which reviews complaints against officers.

Police Federation President Dave Titus released a blistering written response on Oct. 4.

“Melvin Carter has shown zero interest in public safety throughout this campaign and the only reason he released this so-called plan, is gun violence is out of control in St. Paul,” Titus said.

Carter’s proposals have won the support of former St. Paul Police Chief William Finney and relatives of Philando Castile, a St. Paul Public Schools kitchen supervisor fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer in Falcon Heights in July 2016.

“It’s a good idea that the people who are supposed to serve and protect us know us, and then we have to know the police,” said Clarence Castile, Castile’s uncle who is a reserve St. Paul police officer and gubernatorial appointee to the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training. “And that’s one of the things that Melvin wants to see.”

During the St. Paul DFL City Convention in June, Carter consistently dominated each of five ballots, leaving the auditorium with 54 percent of the vote in the final tally, or 6 percentage points shy of securing the party endorsement.

As a result, there will be no DFL-nominated candidate on the Nov. 7 ballot, and Carter — like the nine other candidates for St. Paul mayor — has had to reintroduce himself to voters without official party backing.

He’s had help.

The governor and Lt. Gov. Tina Smith have endorsed him, as have eight state senators and representatives, including state Sen. Sandy Pappas and state Rep. Erin Murphy. Carter has also received the support of U.S. Sen. Al Franken, Congressman Keith Ellison, City Council President Russ Stark and Council Member Amy Brendmoen, and about half the St. Paul School Board, including its chair, Jon Schumacher.

Carter has the backing of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 5, an influential labor union that represents nearly 2,800 workers and retirees in St. Paul. He’s also endorsed by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, the African-American DFL Caucus, and gay and lesbian advocates Stonewall DFL and Outfront Minnesota.

“I think Melvin will be a fantastic mayor. For as long as I’ve known Melvin, he’s really always had a holistic view of education and trying to meet kids’ needs,” said Ryan Vernosh, principal at Maxfield Elementary School in the Rondo neighborhood, where Carter frequently read to young students from the inspirational book “I Dream for You a World: A Covenant for Our Children.”

More recently, Carter’s work at the state level helped provide targeted funding for two full-day pre-kindergarten programs at Maxfield, among other schools across the state.

THE CARTER YEARS

It was 2007, and Carter — who had trained progressive political candidates at Wellstone Political Action — saw an opportunity.

Debbie Montgomery was up for re-election to the Ward 1 city council seat representing Summit-University and Frogtown, and her votes against the city’s smoking ban, among other issues, angered some liberal voters.

Carter, then 28, unseated Montgomery, the council’s first black female member, who was then 61. She has since campaigned for Harris, taking her loyalists with her.

Within weeks, Carter found himself in a budget debate with fellow council members, advocating for more funding for summer youth programs.

His fellow council members chose instead to buy more Taser electroshock guns for the St. Paul Police Department in advance of the Republican National Convention.

He lost the argument by a vote of 6 to 1.

As Metro Transit planned the Central Corridor Light Rail Transit line — now known as the Green Line — Carter raised concern in 2008 about three “missing” University Avenue stops in the Hamline-Midway, Frogtown and Summit-University neighborhoods.

Community groups soon came together in the “Stops For Us” campaign, which took their arguments to federal lawmakers and persuaded the Metropolitan Council to add the Hamline, Victoria and Western stations.

HOUSING ISSUES

On the campaign trail this season, Carter embraced the city’s plans to rezone the former Ford manufacturing plant in Highland Park for medium- to high-density buildings, most of them residential, in light of growing rent and housing costs.

But some critics point out that leading up to Green Line construction, Carter negotiated shortening building heights in the city’s zoning plans for University Avenue.

The council chose to convert most of the University Avenue to “traditional neighborhood” zoning, allowing various levels of high-rise commercial, residential or mixed-used buildings.

At the urging of the Preserve and Benefit Historic Rondo Committee, Carter sponsored an amendment that limited building heights from Lexington Parkway to Marion Street to 35 feet (about two or three stories), or 45 feet for structures within 600 feet of a transit stop.

With a conditional-use permit, building heights under the city’s original zoning plan could have risen up to 90 feet near transit stops.

RELATED: St. Paul mayor’s race candidate profiles

The Carter amendment angered some housing advocates.

“The net impact of what we did was to increase density there,” Carter said.

He had more housing debates ahead of him. In early 2012, Carter joined Council Members Russ Stark and Kathy Lantry in publicly, and unsuccessfully, opposing using city money to complete the stalled Penfield project, a luxury apartment development at 10th and Minnesota streets.

The city’s $62 million investment helped draw a Lunds and Byerlys grocery next door — credited with boosting upscale downtown residential construction.

Despite the success of the Penfield, which the city recently sold for a profit, Carter said he doesn’t regret voting against using public funding to finish the project.

“It didn’t include a unit of affordable housing,” said Carter. “I believe we’re headed toward an urgent moment in St. Paul where housing is concerned. Our population is growing so fast.”