Montgomery, the capital city of Alabama, made history on Tuesday when it elected its first African American mayor. Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven Reed defeated local Fox television station owner David Woods 67% to 33% in a runoff election. The mayor-elect has made history before: The Montgomery Advertiser reports that “Reed was the first African American elected as the county's probate judge in 2012. In 2015, he was the first probate judge in Alabama to issue same-sex marriage licenses.”
With Reed’s election in Montgomery, which served as the first capital of the Confederate States of America and was also the location of the historic year-long bus boycott against segregation in 1955-56 that galvanized the civil rights movement, only Columbus, Georgia, and North Charleston, South Carolina, remain as cities in the Deep South with populations over 100,000 that have never elected a black mayor.
Human Rights Campaign hailed Reed’s election as a victory for the rights of LGBTQ Alabamians, with HRC Alabama state director Carmarion Anderson noting, “Steven Reed is a longtime, unapologetic ally of the LGBTQ community, and last night, he made history as the city’s first Black mayor. HRC was proud to endorse Reed and help turn out the vote for this steadfast champion of equality. We congratulate Steven Reed on his win and look forward to working closely with him to keep moving Montgomery and Alabama forward.”
Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, up for re-election in the deep red state in 2020, tweeted his congratulations to Judge Reed: