By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Aiming to become the first woman elected mayor of the City of Birmingham, State Rep. Juandalynn Givan on Saturday, March 22, kicked off her campaign with a 45-minute speech in the midst of a two-hour rally with supporters who filled the Four Seasons Bar and Grill.
The challenger said she came with prepared remarks on paper and on her phone but didn’t need “a script” to talk about what the city needs.
“We cannot go another four years the way this city is going,” she said. “It’s filthy. … Our streets look like war zones. We don’t need dumpsters. We need men and women working at the Streets and Sanitation Department. Our communities are blighted with paper, litter, brush, and debris everywhere.”
“When you are the chief executive officer for the city of Birmingham, it is your responsibility to make sure these departments have individuals who are department heads that can staff and get the job done,” Givan added. “There is no excuse for us, and under my administration, first and foremost, the first thing I’m going to do is clean this city up. … This is a serious matter.”
The challenger is looking to unseat incumbent Randall Woodfin who announced a month ago that he would seek a third term. The next Birmingham mayoral election is Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025.
Givan — who has represented District 60 (which covers Pratt City, Ensley, Five Points West, North Birmingham, and other areas) in the Alabama House of Representatives since 2010 — first declared her candidacy on New Year’s Day 2025. Her announcement followed a 2024 in which Birmingham saw 152 homicides, the highest number of killings in the city ever, breaking the record of 148 set in 1933.
With homicides down year over year as of early March, Givan on Saturday spoke about what she called Birmingham’s “streets of gun violence,” but expanded her remarks beyond crime to include housing, education, and —taking a page from Woodfin’s handbook — neighborhood revitalization.
“Our city is bigger than downtown, Uptown, and Southside,” said Givan. “Birmingham is comprised of 99 neighborhoods. It shouldn’t matter if you live in Forest Park versus if you live in Ensley, if you live in Pratt, if you live in Riley, if you live in North Birmingham.”
At another point in her nearly hour-long speech, she said, “We’re going to bring in new housing. I’m not talking about low- to moderate-income housing. Birmingham has not built one housing community in the last 10 to 15 years. … How can you grow a city if you’re not growing neighborhoods? How can you grow a city if you’re not bringing in people?”
Throughout the afternoon event, Givan repeated her campaign slogan “Birmingham … It’s Time,” in addition to a few other alliterative phrases, saying her campaign would stand on “people, protections, and progress,” as well as “restore, rejuvenate, and reinvest, … [and] combat, control, and conquer crime.”
While both mayoral hopefuls officially launched their campaigns a month apart, the race took shape last fall when Woodfin and Givan sparred on social media and during press conferences. Woodfin no longer responds to Givan, but that hasn’t stopped the challenger from continuing to needle the incumbent. That was the case again on Saturday when she spoke of Woodfin’s memoir “Son of Birmingham,” which was published Jan. 21, 2025.
“I don’t read comic books,” Givan said.
