PROFESSION: Politician First black mayor of Selma, Alabama, site of the famous "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march to Montgomery. Beat out incumbant,Joe Smitherman , who had held the seat of mayor for 36 years. When he became mayor in 2000, white residents erected a cast-iron statue of Nathan Beford Forrest, a Confederate General and founder of the Ku Klux Klan, on city owned property.
