User:A Girly Pop/Richard Arrington Jr. Political Career

City Council 1971-1979

Campaigns and Elections

In 1971, Arrington began campaigning for election to the Birmingham City Council with the pledge to make Birmingham "a city of which all her people can be proud." He placed third among 29 at-large candidates and faced five opponents in a runoff election for three remaining seats. Arrington earned a majority of the Black vote and He won his seat easily, becoming, after Arthur Shores (who had been appointed to a vacant seat by Mayor George Siebels in 1968), the second African American to serve on the council. He won his first seat on the council due to the large Black voter turnout encouraged by the Jefferson County Progressive Democratic Council and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Arrington's second run for City Council was smoother due to the young politician winning a seat without a runoff.

Policies and Accomplishments

While on the council, Arrington worked to promote affirmative action in Birmingham. After two years of quiet service, He introduced an ordinance requiring city departments to formulate hiring plans that included affirmative action goals and to contract business to companies that hired minorities. With opposition in the business community, the latter action failed, but the departmental hiring ordinance made it out of council to be vetoed by Siebels. Revised proposals that established recruitment programs and prohibited contracting with openly discriminatory firms, were later passed.

Arrington's next notable change was to push for a formal investigation into multiple reports of police brutality. One of which was the shooting of Willis "Bugs" Chambers Jr., an African American suspect, while he was under police custody. Chambers, who had been an informant for the police, died on February 21, 1972. After the incident, Arrington insisted the council move to have the Public Safety Committee investigate. The resulting investigation was unprecedented for the city. After seven weeks, the hearing was inconclusive, but it opened the door to a more serious look at police procedure. In another case of police brutality, Bonita Carter, an eighteen-year-old African American girl, was killed by a white police officer in 1979. After Mayor David Vann refused to fire the officer who shot Carter, Arrington decided to submit his run for mayor to end police brutality and enact more change in Birmingham.

Mayor 1979-1999

Campaigns and Elections

Richard Arrington standing outside the headquarters for his mayoral campaign at 2130 1st Avenue North in Birmingham, Alabama.

Arrington won the 1979 mayoral election due to the Jefferson County Citizens Coalition which helped to mobilize 73% of black voters to vote in the runoff election. Although he had support from only 10% of white voters, 73% of African Americans in Birmingham voted in 1979 for the first African American mayor. In his second run for office, Arrington ran against John Katopodis who was the City Council president. In 1983, Arrington won 60% of the votes in the city winning reelection for another term. For his third term in office in 1987, Arrington faced three opponents in the polls. His biggest competition was Robert McKee who was a white lawyer for the city. The other two opponents, Richard Finley and John Hawkins, were both African American politicians. Despite the competition, Arrington won 64% of the vote, earning him another term as mayor. For his fourth run for office in 1991, Arrington faced a federal investigation into his personal and political life which earned him a strong albeit mixed presence in the local media. Even with the investigation, Arrington easily won a fourth term. In 1995, the mayor ran for his fifth and last term as the City of Birmingham's leader. With seven opponents, Arrington still won 54.9% of the vote.

Policies and Accomplishments

Mayor Richard Arrington looking at a newspaper in his office at city hall in Birmingham, Alabama in 1979.

Richard Arrington Jr. worked to rebuild Birmingham's economy and infrastructure. Decades after the Great Depression, the industrial city still faced large numbers of unemployment. He worked to bring banking and finance companies to the city as well as expanding the city's solely steel industry to other fields. Under his leadership, the University of Alabama at Birmingham became the city's top employer while also providing medical research and healthcare to the community. Arrington also annexed unincorporated areas near the city to increase its land and tax base. The mayor pushed for policies centering around Birmingham's economy, including creating foundations to revitalize the city center and using federal grants to rebuild Five Points South into a modern district. Additionally, Arrington created the Birmingham Plan in 1989 which was a program where construction contractors set annual goals for various projects in the area.

During his twenty years in office, Arrington also worked to redefine the city's government itself. When first elected to mayor, he wanted to select his own staff, but the decision was met with pushback from the Jefferson County Personnel Board. In the end Arrington won the fight and was able to select department heads and administrative staff, many of whom were minorities, which brought more professionalism, diversity, and competence to the City Hall.