Salute Randall Lee Woodfin:

Mayor Randall Woodfin speaks after being sworn in as mayor of Birmingham at Linn Park in Birmingham, Ala., Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017. (Photo by Mark Almond)

Randall Lee Woodfin (born May 29, 1981, in Birmingham) is the Mayor of the City of Birmingham since 2017. He is a former assistant city attorney and former president of the Birmingham Board of Education. Woodfin, the son of Cynthia Woodfin-Kellum, grew up in North Birmingham. His older brother, Ralph Woodfin, was given the privilege of picking his name. Their mother suggested “Randall” rather than just “Randy”, “in case [he] ever ran for an important office like president.”

He attended North Birmingham Elementary School, Putnam Middle School, and Shades Valley High School. While in school he worked as a bagger at Food Smart. Woodfin grew up with three siblings; his older brother Ralph was killed by gun violence in 2011. Woodfin’s nephew Ralph Woodfin III was killed in August 2017. Woodfin has a bachelor’s degree in political science from

Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and served as SGA president during his senior year in 2002-2003. Woodfin went on to earn his juris doctorate at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. After law school he went on to clerk for one of the firms representing the Board of Education. Woodfin was then appointed an assistant city attorney for the City of Birmingham in 2009. He ran unsuccessfully for the District 3 seat on the Birmingham Board of Education in that year’s municipal election. In August 2016 Woodfin announced his candidacy for the 2017 Birmingham mayoral election. Ed Fields managed the campaign while Pine Street Strategies of Washington D.C. conducted a national fundraising drive which targeted Morehouse graduates and pushed positive stories on Woodfin to the national media. He was endorsed locally by the Grassroots Coalition, the Birmingham Professional Firefighters Association, and the Birmingham Local Chapter of National Letter Carriers Association, and nationally by Our Revolution and the Political Revolution PAC. He garnered the largest number of votes on election day, advancing to a runoff with incumbent William Bell. On October 3, 2017, Randall Woodfin became the youngest mayor in Birmingham history by winning the run-off election for Mayor of Birmingham with 59% of the votes defeating incumbent Mayor William Bell.