By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Randall Woodfin recalls a visit to his mother’s house in 2016 with news that he’d been sitting on for a while.
“I tore my mom away from reruns of Wyatt Earp and asked her and my stepdad to have a seat,” he writes in his soon-to-be-released memoir, “Son of Birmingham.” “I needed their undivided attention for this. … I’m running for mayor of Birmingham,” he writes.
“‘You’re running against Mayor Bell?’ my mom replied. Her words were wrapped in astonishment and a hint of unease. ‘No, ma’am, I’m running for Birmingham.’”
The Birmingham Times obtained an advance copy of the 288-page tome, in which Woodfin chronicles his rise from a bagger at Western Supermarket to becoming the youngest mayor in the city’s history with success and failures along the way, as well as his love for family (mom, Cynthia Woodfin-Kellum, known as Mama Woodfin; wife, Kendra, and children) and hip-hop, specifically Outkast, the Atlanta, Georgia-based hip-hop duo featuring Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and André “André 3000” Benjamin.
To partly understand the book and Woodfin is to understand his love of Outkast. All 14 chapters of the book are titled after singles by the Grammy Award–winning group.
“My love of Outkast’s music traces all the way back to 1994 and their debut video, ‘Player’s Ball.’ …,” he writes. “Their platinum-selling debut album ‘Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik’ captivated me. These rappers felt like two guys from my hood, and I could relate to every lyric they spit. I’m also pretty sure they helped trigger my love of Cadillacs.”
Written with award-winning journalist and deputy director of communications for the city of Birmingham Mayor’s Office, Edward T. Bowser— “The Big Boi to my André 3000 when it comes to raising our voices for Birmingham,” Woodfin says—the mayor gives an insider’s account at his travels to Morehouse College, the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, and the city of Birmingham Law Department; his stints as a campaign organizer at the local, state, and federal levels and president of the Birmingham Board of Education president; and his journey as a mayor seeking his third term, as well as his role as a son, a brother, a husband, and a father.
Crime
Woodfin anticipates that many readers will be looking for what he has to say about the city’s crime epidemic. On Sunday, November 24, a 22-year-old man became the city’s 145th homicide this year, pushing the city’s 2024 homicide total to the highest in recent memory.
In fact, during the rollout of his book on social media he writes, “‘Son of Birmingham’ is not just my story—it’s the story of us. It’s about how gun violence has touched American families, including my own family, and how we’re fighting it right now in our communities.”
Woodfin’s nephew was killed in August of 2017 and his nephew’s father — Woodfin’s brother — was killed in May of 2012.
The mayor further explains in the book: “My family knows the horrors of violence against loved ones firsthand. It’s a grief that never leaves. I’d never wish that pain on anyone. I felt the pain of families ripped apart by gun violence because I lived it every day. I wasn’t the first to arrive at the scene of my nephew’s shooting—his mother was already there—but I was the family member chosen to identify him. I never saw the body; instead, the officer came over and showed me a pic.
“It was Baby Ralph. With a bullet hole in his head. He was only ten days past his eighteenth birthday. He never had the opportunity to achieve his dreams. To start a family or career. To be happy and grow old. That bullet snatched every bit of potential away from him. Just like a bullet had done to his father. My brother. And just like the death of his father, I didn’t have time to grieve. I had to be the rock for my family … I could not weep. I could not mourn. I had to suppress it all.”
But Woodfin acknowledges that if one person is expected to curb the city’s crime epidemic that’s unlikely.
“If you’re reading this chapter (10) looking for the key to erase violent crime, sorry to disappoint,” he writes. “You can’t wipe away generational issues with one quick fix. That’s why we’re approaching this public health crisis from as many angles as possible.”
Anyone who follows Birmingham city government will recognize Woodfin’s approach to reducing crime. In his book, as he’s done during numerous city council presentations and press conferences, the mayor writes about Birmingham Police seizing thousands of firearms; conflict resolution programs; health-based violence interruption programs; partnering with Birmingham City Schools to push mental health initiatives; locking arms with community organizations that champion reentry efforts; and launching the Increase Peace awareness campaign, a series of vignettes that ran on social media and local TV, where mothers gave heartbreaking accounts of their lost children and issued an impassioned plea for peace.
The challenges also come in the uphill battle against “no snitching” culture, which has “gotten way out of hand,” he writes. “When you reveal information about a crime you witnessed, you’re not ‘snitching’; you’re protecting your community. So many crimes go unsolved simply because members of communities refuse to speak up. Justice cannot survive in an information vacuum.”
Coming of Age
But “Son of Birmingham” delves beyond crime and punishment. It’s a coming-of-age story about a music junkie who found an insatiable appetite for politics. And once he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, as the book outlines, he would become even more hooked on both.
He writes of lessons he learned about leadership at Morehouse College, the Historically Black College and University in Atlanta: “For some schools, it may be the football field or the basketball court where leaders are born and bred. At Morehouse, student government is a varsity sport.”
The mayor writes that he learned a lesson about campaigning during his sophomore year, “call it the Year of ‘Stankonia’ — in honor Outkast’s mainstream breakthrough album that year,” he writes, when he ran for student government association (SGA) corresponding secretary.
“I was running against more-established students, so I was the underdog from the start,” he writes. “I felt that the best way to establish connections with students was to meet them where they were. So I started a door-knocking campaign, knocking on every dorm door to introduce myself.
“Eventually, I was in a runoff with a very popular junior. My strategy didn’t change—I went back and knocked on every dorm room door I could, again. When the last votes were counted, I pulled it off, defeating the more-established candidate in a big upset.
“I wouldn’t know it at the time, but my SGA corresponding secretary race would be the blueprint for my mayoral race and victory sixteen years later,” he writes.
Education
There’s also a lengthy chapter on Birmingham Education including where Woodfin served as Board president.
“What I learned during my time on the school board is that our schools are too adult-driven, meaning we make decisions based on the wants and needs of adults, not our children. The result is a roster of antiquated and outdated programs and initiatives. Mismanagement of funds. Egos run amok.
“My favorite thing to do as school board president was to go out and connect with young people. How can you understand their strengths and assess their weaknesses if you’re barking orders from a far-off island?
“Second favorite? Connect the pieces of the machine: Parents. School board members. Teachers. Mayors and city council. Community leaders. Principals. Superintendents.”
One of Woodfin’s biggest successes, he writes, may be the Birmingham Promise initiative that he patterned after a program in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which offered a scholarship—funded by anonymous donors—that would pay 100 percent of the in-state college tuition of graduates of the Kalamazoo Public Schools school district. There were also options for apprenticeships and trade school programs.
“[Birmingham Promise] wasn’t an easy sell, and you can blame fear for that,” he writes. “… In time, we got the support we needed, about $3 million in private donations, as well as commitments from local employers to set up apprenticeship programs.”
Since its creation in 2019, Birmingham Promise, which celebrated its fifth anniversary last week, has provided college scholarships totaling $11 million to 1,636 graduates of Birmingham City Schools. It has also facilitated paid internships for more than 300 high-school students in the Birmingham system. The PNC Foundation recently donated $10 million to Birmingham Promise over the next 10 years—the largest private donation in the organization’s history.
Love
And, of course, the book would not be a true memoir without a chapter/love letter (Elevators Me & You) for his wife, Kendra, and daughter, Love, which sums up the mayor’s current mindset. “… I see marriage as the next step in my growth into manhood, leadership, fatherhood—everything that will define my legacy,” he writes. Woodfin also tells of his surprise marriage proposal that “was a three-act play,” which doesn’t need a spoiler here. But it was “award-winning” he writes.
Cameos
There are a few cameos throughout the memoir including names many will recognize: Cedric Sparks, his current chief of staff and former Executive Director of city’s Division of Youth Services; Ed Fields, his former campaign manager, and current Senior Advisor and Chief Strategist; Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Carol Smitherman; Lee Loder, president of the Birmingham City Council in 2003 who was also a Birmingham Municipal Court judge as well as founder of the Loder Law Firm and a Morehouse alum; Shanta Owens, criminal court judge in Alabama; her twin sister, Shera, a civil court judge and Clyde Jones, who ran for the statewide Court of Criminal Appeals, which is one level below the Alabama state Supreme Court, and of course former Mayor William Bell who he defeated in both 2017 and 2021.
Woodfin writes, “I didn’t have a grudge against William Bell. There was no long- standing vendetta to oust him. Like I told my mom, this wasn’t about him. It was about the people of Birmingham.”
“I felt that our leadership had become complacent. Kind of like when a once-dominant sports franchise starts to lose its hunger.”
Woodfin acknowledges how close he may have come to losing that first election which may have derailed his political ambitions but caught a break during a debate he never expected against the formidable politician, he writes.
“Bell is a powerful, bombastic presence. My approach was much more soft-spoken back then. Plus, my energy was off and my nerves were rattled,” he writes.
“Fortunately for me, folks seemed more preoccupied with Bell’s poor makeup job than with my shaky delivery. Whatever makeup they used on him didn’t blend well and man, the memes were ruthless. I got lucky with that one.
“And when the final numbers came in, I was overjoyed.
“Randall Lee Woodfin, the bagger from Western Supermarket, defeated longtime political mainstay William Bell, with 59 percent of the vote to his 41 percent.”
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin’s memoir “Son of Birmingham” is scheduled for full release on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. The 270-page book is available for pre-order at sonofbirmingham.com.
