Steven L. Reed made history in Montgomery, Alabama after being elected the first black mayor in the city's 200-year history. Reed, who was also the first black probate judge elected in Montgomery, took 67 percent of the votes in a nonpartisan runoff election against David Woods, owner of the local Fox affiliate.
Montgomery is the birthplace of the civil rights movement, and in contrast, it was also the first capital of the Confederacy early in the Civil War. Alabama's second-largest city was also the site of Rosa Parks' famed bus boycott in 1955, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and the Selma-to-Montgomery protest march that led to the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Reed addressed the history during his victory speech, stating, "This election has never been about me. This election has never about just my ideas. It’s been about all of the hopes and dreams that we have as individuals and collectively in this city … and the way we found the opportunity to improve outcomes regardless of neighborhood, regardless of Zip code, regardless of anything that may divide us or make us different from one another."
He added, "Let the record show tonight, above all ... what we can do when we come together in this city and we build around positivity, around opportunity, and all the things that tie us together versus those things that keep us apart."
