Mayor Woodfin: Birmingham Still Pays a High Price for Its Segregationist Past

By Mayor Randall Woodfin More than 60 years after federal courts dismantled legal segregation in Alabama, the city of Birmingham is still paying a price and suffering residual effects from this shameful part of our past. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin. (File) This fact should not come as a surprise. We know communities to this day still feel the effects of our nation’s legacy of slavery and oppression. Even though Birmingham did not become a city until 1871, its founders were former slaveholders who perpetuated the inequities of the pre-Civil War South, and our city still bears the scars of unjust Jim Crow practices and laws. Putting a true dollar value on the costs of segregation would require extensive research and scholarly examination. But there’s no question that Birmingham’s historical efforts to institute, maintain and enforce second-class citizenship for its Black residents has exacted — and is still exacting — a staggering price. The full impact hit me hard during the challenges of COVID. At the onset of the pandemic, our administration had already spent three years pressing for equity and social justice in all areas of health, education, economic opportunity, public safety and neighborhood vitality. We had seen substantial impacts...