Montgomery: Alabama capital known as ‘cradle of the Confederacy’ elects black mayor for first time in 200-year history
The Alabama city once known as “the cradle of the Confederacy” has elected the first black mayor in its 200-year history.
Probate judge Steven Reed defeated David Woods in Tuesday’s vote in Montgomery, the state capital where bus boycotts over segregated seating in the 1950s helped to birth the civil rights movement.
He secured about 67 per cent of the vote in the bipartisan mayoral run-off, according to unofficial returns.
Mr Reed’s supporters held up campaign T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “We made history” as they celebrated his victory in the city of about 200,000 people, about 60 per cent of whom are African-American.
“This election has never been about me,” he said in his victory speech. “This election has never been about just my ideas. It’s been about all the hopes and dreams we have as individuals and collectively in this city.”
Mr Reed was already the first black probate judge elected in Montgomery County and was one of the first to issued marriage licences to gay couples in Alabama.
His latest victory comes in a city still coming to terms with its legacy of racism. Southern states voted to form the Confederacy in Montgomery in 1861 and the city served as the unofficial republic's first capital.
Last year, the Equal Justice Initiative opened a memorial and museum in Montgomery’s city centre to honour victims of lynching in the racially segregated era after the US Civil War.
The city was the site of the pivotal bus boycott, a year-long civil rights protest sparked by black seamstress Rosa Parks, who was famously jailed after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger as required by law in 1955.
The US Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to end racial segregation on its buses, and Martin Luther King Jr, one of the boycott’s leaders, went on to emerge as one of the most prominent leaders of the American civil rights movement.
Mr Reed is scheduled to be sworn into office at Montgomery’s city hall on 12 November.
His father, Joe Reed, is the longtime leader of the black caucus of the Alabama Democratic Party. Mr Woods, who owns Fox-affiliated television station WCOV, is the son of the late broadcasting executive Charles Woods, a perennial candidate in Alabama elections over 30 years.
Mr Reed will replace current mayor Todd Strange, who has served since 2009 and did not seek re-election.
