MONROEVILLE, ALABAMA ELECTS ITS FIRST BLACK MAYOR IN CITY’S 121-YEAR HISTORY
The Monroe County Courthouse in Monroeville remains a tourist attraction thanks to the city's deep literary roots. But economic development in a city that has seen a dwindling population will be among the challenges facing incoming Mayor Charles Andrews. He was elected as the city's first Black mayor on August 25, 2020
Charles Andrews remembers his first trip to see the movie, “To Kill a Mockingbird” inside a single-screen theater in downtown Monroeville, the small town that inspired an American literary classic written by its most famous resident, Harper Lee.
He was a young boy at the time when his mother took him to see the Academy Award-winning film starring Gregory Peck inside a segregated theater.
“It didn’t strike me that we were sitting in the black section of the theater,” said Andrews, now 65. “Being a child at the time, and being the first time going to the movies, I was kind of awe-struck.”
Andrews on Tuesday, roughly 60 years since Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was released, provided Monroeville with another historic moment when he won the mayoral race to become the first Black person to assume the city’s top elected post. The moment left Andrews awe-struck once more, much like that little boy who was watching a movie loosely inspired on a historic moment in the community he now leads.
But the political victory also allowed him to reflect on his childhood and moments such as spotting a sign that read “White Only” above a water fountain at a local gas station around the same time he had just learned how to read.
“I think Monroeville, over the years, has grown past that,” said Andrews, referring to its segregated past which existed into the 1970s and a well-documented history that also includes the wrongful murder conviction of Walter McMillan in 1988, detailed in the novel and movie, “Just Mercy.” Andrews, himself, attended Union High School in the city’s Black neighborhood before moving to the integrated Monroe County High School in 1970.
“One of the things I learned during my campaign is that there are so many people, a diverse group of people, and the biggest they want to do is not just have someone to talk to, but someone who will listen t what their concerns are,” he said. “Over the years, the biggest thing that I have learned is that you really want to learn from the people, you listen to them.”
Charles Andrews was elected the city of Monroeville's first Black mayor on Tuesday, August 25, 2020. He takes office on November 2, 2020.
