Montgomery has never had a black mayor. Will that change in August?

In 1975, the city of Montgomery overhauled its system of government to make it easier for African Americans to hold elected municipal positions.

Largely, it was a success.

Black City Council members were immediately elected and have held positions on the body ever since. Those victories, however, did not extend to the mayoral seat.

Montgomery has never had a black mayor. It is one of only three cities in six Deep South states with a population of 100,000 or more that has not had African American representation at the highest executive position.

In August, Montgomerians will go to the polls and could make history by electing its first black mayor. The Montgomery Advertiser talked with prominent figures, candidates and politicians around the city to get their take on why the city has not had a black mayor and whether that will change in the coming months.

"African Americans have been shut out by law and by practice for so long that they yearn to have someone in office that shares their points of view about how a city should be run and who should benefit from a city’s largesse," said Vanzetta Penn McPherson, a retired U.S. magistrate judge for the Middle District of Alabama and contributing columnist with the Advertiser.

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The retired judge was quick to point out that whites can govern African Americans, and vice versa.

Black citizens, she said, make up a majority of the city — about 60%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 American Community Survey estimates.

While there are two other cities — Columbus, Georgia and North Charleston, South Carolina — that have a majority black population and haven’t had a black mayor, the African American majority is only by about 1%, compared to Montgomery’s nearly 16% gap.

"If you know the history of Alabama and particularly out of Montgomery, for many reasons, there has been a separation of the races," said outgoing City Councilman Fred Bell. "There has been desegregation, but not integration."

Montgomery remains racially fractured, he said. People work together, but they don’t socialize together, eat together or spend time together. Bell said white and black people are afraid to talk with each other about the racial issues still present, especially outside of one-on-one situations.

And candidates of opposite race and political stripes can’t endorse the “other side,” Bell said, even if their ideas are more closely aligned.

"We haven’t sat down and smoked the peace pipe together," he joked.

McPherson thinks there are two primary reasons why there has not been an African American mayor.

The first, she said, is that white residents are afraid to be represented by a black politician. The second is that too many African Americans run in the race.

That dynamic has already been set for the 2019 race. Of the 12 candidates, 10 are black. That fractures the vote, McPherson said.

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Throughout the United States, black politicians almost always need the black community to fully vote for them, she said, while hoping to pull a big enough group of white voters to build a successful coalition. With so many African American candidates that run, it becomes nearly impossible.

Bell said he believes party politics come into play as well. Despite the mayor’s race being party neutral, voters identify candidates with a certain party rather than judge them on their ideas and platforms. Racial politics are baked into that system, Bell said, and only exacerbate the divides within the community.

Several studies have shown that race does play a factor in voter turnout, voter choice and satisfaction with politicians.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics conducted a study while President Obama was in office and found that, aside from party identification and political ideology, race was the largest factor influencing his approval rates.

"Between gender, different age groups, religions, income levels, education, geography and community type, no gap in approval was as wide as the ones between whites and blacks," the study showed.

Before 1975, Montgomery operated, like many other Alabama municipalities, under an at-large Commission structure where three officials — one of whom was the mayor — were elected by every single resident in the city.

That made it nearly impossible for black residents, a minority in the city at the time, to elect officials within the city.  In the year the council was created and African Americans won multiple seats, 113 people ran for local positions.

Since then, four different white men have served as mayor — Jim Robinson, Emory Folmar, Bobby Bright and current mayor Todd Strange. Between, Bright and Strange, Montgomery City Council President Charles Jinright briefly served as interim mayor as well.

"People tend to respond better to a government that they feel is truly representative," McPherson said. "They want to know that their elected officials understand their plight."

The Advertiser reached out to the candidates who have the chance to make history and become the first black mayor in the city. Their opinions varied widely, with some downplaying the importance of an African American winning the mayor’s race, while others noted the historic and political significance that their election to office would have.

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"Diversity is important because it is one of the fundamental strengths of our community," Montgomery Probate Judge Steven Reed said. "I want residents of our city to have a sense of ownership in their government and this election on Aug. 27 is a great opportunity to show that."

Retired veteran and postal worker Butler Browder said black citizens have been locked out of the political process for years in all forms of government. Despite the fact that they should have received equal rights under the constitution, he said many of those were delayed into the later 1900s and into today.

In the eyes of Department of Corrections employee Victorrus Felder, the political disengagement of Montgomery’s younger voters has affected turnout and black candidates' ability to bring them to the polls.

"Psychological warfare and manipulation on the minds of blacks has hurt our progress in electing a black official to Montgomery's highest seat," he said.

Reed said he believes there are likely many factors, present in all cities throughout the country, that have contributed to Montgomery’s run of white men elected to the mayoral office.

"Much like the nation as a whole, Montgomery has only recently begun to imagine the idea of a leadership who did not look like the Founding Fathers of our country," he said.

Every candidate who responded said it would be an honor to the city’s first black mayor but that their priorities lay more with putting the city on the right path to be successful for all residents.

"As a Congressman, I was grateful for the fact that in my re-election races, I received near identical, and overwhelming shares of the vote, in precincts that were mainly black and those that were mainly white," said former Congressman Artur Davis.

"I don’t seek the position of mayor to make history, but to make changes in this city’s direction," he said.

McPherson said every advancement for African Americans — such as equal access to busing, public schools, libraries and private businesses — has come through court order, making the possibility of the election of a black official to Montgomery’s top spot especially important.

Councilman Fred Bell remains hopeful for the future but believes there needs to be an honest reckoning between races before real change can occur.

"I don’t think it is important just to have a black mayor just because that black mayor is black. The color in itself does not matter," he said.

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The election of a black candidate who whites and blacks can agree stands for the same issues is key, he said, because it shows the citizens of Montgomery have and accept diversity of thought and idea.

Those shifts may largely come from future generations, Bell said.

He told the story of watching his grandchildren at a local event. Kids of all races played, laughed and danced, regardless of their skin tone.

"I think when they get up, it is going to be a different Montgomery," Bell said. "That may seem small, but these younger kids are more accepting. … I think they respect each other’s diversity."