1979
BIRMINGHAM ELECTS ITS FIRST BLACK MAYOR
On a Friday night in June 1979, as told in the documentary Iron Grit and subsequently in the podcast Unjustifiable, an argument erupted when a Black man took offense at being asked to pay for gasoline before he pumped it, which was a new practice in those days. Ultimately the man, Alger “Buster” Pickett, left, but he returned with a gun and fired into the store. Pickett fled on foot, then realized that he had left his car and yelled back for someone to bring his vehicle to him. Bonita Carter, a 20-year-old Black woman, heeded Pickett’s call and got into the car to drive it to him. Police arrived, and in the ensuing confusion, a white police officer shot Carter in the back and killed her.
The incident led to multiple racially charged protests and counter-protests. Birmingham Mayor David Vann backed the police officer, which put him and Richard Arrington, a Black man on the Birmingham City Council, on opposite sides of the issue. The Bonita Carter incident moved Arrington to run for mayor.
Vann had formerly served on the council with Arrington and had been an Arrington ally. Years later, Arrington acknowledged that, had it not been for the Bonita Carter incident, he likely would not have sought re-election to the council, and he certainly would not have mounted a mayoral campaign against Vann, a progressive who had been favored in the city’s Black community.
The unlikely campaign resulted in Arrington becoming the first Black person elected mayor in the city that had been nationally, if not internationally, known for racial division. He served as mayor for 20 years.
Sources
AL.com – Decades Before Black Lives Matter Bonita Carter Changed Alabama Forever