Montgomery sees birth of civil rights to 1st black mayor
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — At a polling place not far from the intersection of avenues named for Jefferson Davis and Rosa Parks, Laura Minor spent a scorching afternoon on a folding chair with a David Woods for Mayor sticker on her shirt. She had been hired to represent his campaign, yet she was not shy about making it clear that Woods had bought her time but had not won her vote.
“I’m actually supporting Steven Reed,” Minor said, explaining the enthusiasm she had, as a black woman and nearly lifelong resident of Montgomery, for the other candidate: Reed, a probate judge and the son of a prominent political family, who emerged from a runoff race on Tuesday as the first African American elected to lead Alabama’s capital city.
His campaign, and its success, has sent a volt of excitement and validation through the black community, which makes up 60 percent of the city’s population.
Montgomery is fundamentally shaped by tandem legacies as a capital in the nation’s vicious racial past and as a cradle for the civil rights movement. And many who grew up under the shadow of that history could not help but hope that they were seeing the start of a thrilling new chapter.
“This is our season,” said Yolanda Sayles Robinson, 59, who was born in the city and described herself as a product of the 1960s. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
Reed entered the nonpartisan runoff with Woods, a white television station owner, after advancing from what had been a 12-person race. In the election Tuesday, Reed captured 67 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results released by the city. Now, Montgomery joins Birmingham and Selma, two other monumental battlegrounds in Alabama’s civil rights fight, in selecting young, African American men as mayors.
“You believed that we didn’t have to be defined by our past,” Reed told supporters. “It’s not going to be about the first. It’s not even going to be about the best. It’s going to be about the impact we make on the lives of others.”
During his campaign, Reed talked about bringing about progress “regardless of neighborhood, regardless of ZIP code.” He said he would encourage investment in education and seek to improve ties between the police and the city’s minority communities.