Baltimore’s Brandon Scott has been appointed president of the African American Mayors Association, a national nonprofit representing more than 500 mayors across the country.

The Maryland politician is the first from Baltimore to lead the group. Scott, who has been a member of the AAMA board for six years, was sworn into the leadership role Friday at the end of the association’s conference in Washington.

Scott, 42, said he is humbled by the opportunity to lead this organization amid “all the crazy federal attacks on Black people, Black culture, Black institutions, the uncertainty that is in people’s lives.”

Scott added: “We are blessed to be alive at such a time as when we have to be the ones to defend against people trying to take us back, in many, many, many years against things that people that came before us fought and died for.”

AAMA operates on a succession plan, and Scott was the association’s most recent first vice president. His term as president will be one year.

This latest achievement means Scott’s momentum continues as he eyes a third mayoral run.

Scott proudly touts membership in the U.S. Conference of Mayors and other organizations.

But he also said an association like AAMA is needed — especially for a group of mayors that shares a unique background like their race.

“Being a mayor is hard,” he said Friday evening. “Being a Black mayor is even harder. And, for our sister mayors, being a Black woman mayor is the hardest job in electoral politics in this country.

“We have to have these kind of organizations to support each other, lift each other up, share and borrow ideas, push each other, do all of the things that we need to do.”