Richard Gordon Hatcher (July 10, 1933 – December 13, 2019) was an American attorney and politician who served as the first African-American mayor of Gary, Indiana, for 20 years, from 1968 to 1988.

In 1961, he began serving as a deputy prosecutor for Lake County, Indiana, until he was elected to Gary's City Council in 1963.

When Hatcher refused, Krupa directed the machine to work in favor of the Republican nominee, Joseph Radigan.

Hatcher was known for developing innovative approaches to urban problems and for being a national and international spokesman for civil rights, minorities, the poor and America's cities.

He often delivered speeches alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, and other historic proponents of the civil rights movement.

Hatcher's good government initiatives did help clean up the police department of corruption and reduced patronage, but macroeconomic and societal forces beyond the city's control caused Gary to spiral into severe decline.

[5] Although Hatcher won the 1967 election, the white-dominated Democratic machine was not about to give up; instead, they changed tactics and supported a middle-class black primary challenger who they felt was a racial moderate and (most importantly) was more cooperative with the machine: Dr. Alexander Williams, a prominent black physician who was elected Lake County coroner with the machine's backing, and who represented Gary's black middle class and criticized Hatcher's tactics and policies.

[6] In 1971, Hatcher targeted the neighboring unincorporated area of Merrillville, Indiana, for annexation to gain more land for suburban expansion and to recapture some of the population that had left Gary.

[7] After Democratic presidential nomination candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976 expressed sympathy with whites wishing to preserve the "ethnic purity" of their neighborhoods, a comment which was roundly condemned by other Democrats and resulted in a public apology, Mayor Hatcher characterized Carter as a "Frankenstein monster with a Southern drawl.

[5][11][12] Over the course of his tenure, Hatcher was able to secure hundreds of million of dollars from the federal government for subsidized housing and job-training programs.

In 1991, he sought to retake his former position as mayor, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Thomas Barnes in the Democratic primary.