Idotha "Bootsie" Neal (September 9, 1952[1] – January 24, 2021)[2] was a politician and developer in Dayton, Ohio and a member of the Democratic Party.
Born in Newbern, Alabama, she grew up in Buffalo, New York.
[1] In 1991, she became the first African-American woman elected to Dayton's city commission, on which she served until 2004.
Since then, she worked on redevelopment of Dayton's historic urban neighborhoods.
[3] She served until 2014 as president of an organization dedicated to Wright-Dunbar, the historical Dayton neighborhood that was the site of the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and the birthplace of the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.