Selma Elects First Black Mayor

Businessman James Perkins was elected Selma's first black mayor Tuesday, ousting a former segregationist who was in office during the 1965 bloodshed that helped open voting booths to blacks across the South.

Perkins, 47, defeated Mayor Joe Smitherman, who was seeking his 10th straight term in the non-partisan runoff. It was Perkins' third attempt to knock Smitherman out of office.

Perkins received 6,326 votes, or about 57 percent. Smitherman had 4,854 votes, or about 43 percent. Turnout was heavy.

The 70-year-old Smitherman became mayor about six months before Selma's historic voting rights marches of 1965, and managed to hold onto the office over the years as the electorate went from nearly all-white to 65 percent black.

He had won in recent years by getting almost all the white votes and some black votes.

"Many have said it's about black and white. That ain't so. This campaign has been about faith and fear. Faith won this campaign," Perkins told about 500 supporters during a victory speech.

During the campaign, Smitherman had warned that Selma would have an all-black government and business would leave if Perkins were elected.

"Mr. Perkins ran a good race and I respect him," Smitherman said in his concession speech. "I will not contest the result." He added: "I had bad times as mayor, I had good times. I think I accomplished some things."

Only about 150 blacks were registered to vote in 1964 when Smitherman was first elected. At the time, he opposed blacks voting in large numbers and once referred to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as "Martin Luther Coon" in what he claimed was a slip of the tongue.

Soon after his election, deputies and troopers attacked voting rights marchers with clubs and tear gas. The violence, and the ensuing Selma-to-Montgomery march led by King, galvanized the nation and helped lead to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Like his friend and mentor, the late Gov. George Wallace, Smitherman later apologized for his segregationist past and in recent years openly campaigned for black votes. He bragged that he appointed nine black department heads, including a black police chief.

Blacks make up two-thirds of the city's 14,000 voters.

In a mayoral election Aug. 22, Smitherman trailed badly among blacks and for the first time in 10 elections did not get the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.

On Tuesday, as the polls closed and it became apparent that Perkins would win, his supporters flooded the streets, honking horns, shouting and singing.

"This was the final step of the march over the bridge," said Burl Brown. "This is the dream that Dr. King wanted. The reason we're so happy is that Selma needed this. Change has to be made."

Perkins, an information technology consultant, ran his campaign from a small house behind his home. His campaign has featured mostly young volunteers standing on street corners in Selma's torrid summer eat holding placards and chanting, "Joe's Gotta Go!"

The political climate in Selma has been controversial since the election in August, with charges of abuse involving absentee ballots and calls by both candidates for federal and state observers for Tuesday's runoff.

Two Justice Department lawyers were sent to Selma to field any complaints.

©2000 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed