This is the fourth and final segment of our discussion with Randall Woodfin.

In May 2017, The Political Revolution’s Steven Johnson and David Dai met with Randall Woodfin, candidate for Mayor of Birmingham. They met at Octane Coffee in Birmingham and talked about Randall’s history, their mutual work in education, politics and the issues facing Birmingham. David and Steven each hold a Master’s of Education from the University of Alabama and Randall Woodfin currently serves on The Board of Education.

If you missed earlier segments, click here for part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Audio available on Soundcloud:

(In the last segment Randall, Steven and David were discussing voting groups and the difference between local and national elections)

Steven: …but the big thing is – of course like you said is trying to get people to like – make people care.

Randall: This is an interesting group over here (majority voters) – much larger than these two (disaffected and nonvoting public)

Steven: Yeah, it is and it’s sad. And it’s that group who only cares about the presidential election, and you try to tell these people that the president has a lot of power, but if you want things to change in Birmingham or Tuscaloosa or in Huntsville or in Mobile – you gotta go look for your town council, you gotta go look for your mayor – those are the people who are going to do things for your city. As a person you don’t have much control on the national scene but you can make some changes in your city.

Randall: Man, so much power, I don’t know why don’t we wield that – so much power – and it’s this space there this is real change – real. Not fake, not imaginary, dont have to worry about Congress stopping it, don’t have to worry about executive orders banning it, don’t have to worry about a governor vetoing it – this is real. Right here. It doesn’t get any more important than policing. If I travel and I have a fundraiser somewhere people say “well why should I care about Birmingham?” and I tell them, the same reason you should care about the city you live in whether it’s New York, DC, Atlanta, Mobile or Tuscaloosa.
What’s important to you? And they tell me – “well…we need to fight poverty”
Alright, you see what’s going on with the national conversation right now, you think the president cares about fighting poverty? Addressing poverty? A plan to fight poverty? He doesn’t.
It’s going to come from your mayor. Crime? It’s gonna come from your mayor. Policing. It’s gonna come from your mayor. This administration clearly doesn’t care about education. Public education. That is gonna come from your mayor. Every issue everybody’s concerned about now, I can literally find a way to tell you it’s gonna correlate everything to the local level.

So yeah, is the 2020 presidential election important? Absolutely. Is the 2018 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races important? Absolutely. There are two reasons why ‘17 is important, maybe three. One, look at all the cities across the nation – you got Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Cleveland, and I’m missing all these other cities – even Jackson – municipal elections this year. So young progressives – where do you think the bench is coming from? And most of those races are nonpartisan like ours. So no Democrats and Republicans. Your bench of new leaders, it’s coming from your municipal elections. People like Tommy Battle and Maddox are showing you – where you think your next batch of governors are gonna come from?

Steven: They’re already talking about Maddox running for governor, read that article yesterday.

Randall: I read one about Battle. They’ve got a commercial already. Im dead serious. But what I’m saying is, the investment is local. Every change you wanna see – its local. Sanctuary cities, community policing, literally fighting poverty – think about every urban area across the nation, it’s full of homelessness, poverty and crime. Nobody’s in a better position to fight that than the mayor. Nobody. And there are actually resources to fight those things I just named – but ya gotta have a vision first.

Steven: I guess we’ll get one more question then we’ll let you get on with your day – so I was gonna ask – so it’s been interesting to watch the Governor Bentley stuff go on. Yeah I shake my head too, it’s even more interesting cause in Tuscaloosa his grandkids and [Ms. Mason’s] kids go to the same school together right now – they’re in my school – I see his grandkids and I see that poor son of the woman with his headset every day. That kid just puts headphones in every day and puts his head down and as a teacher I can just be like – I can’t blame, I can’t get upset with you right now, you’ve got so much going on. Its two fold, of course the Bentley stuff brings it to light, but like even just looking at people, I feel like the mayor in the town where I grew up – I didn’t know who it was. I’ve never even seen the guy before and I live in a town with a thousand people.
How do you plan on trying to make your mayor’s office open to the people of Birmingham? How do you feel you’re gonna keep yourself open enough?

Randall: So right now as a candidate, I pass [my phone number] out all the time. Thats this phone (pulls out his cell) like literally. I make it a habit to respond to everybody within 24 hours. I’m available right then on a pickup. There’s a couple things in this space. The thing about public service, what I’m comfortable with – that ain’t my damn money. That’s not even my office, it’s like a borrowed office within a certain amount of time.
So here’s how I frame it – nobody should be the mayor forever. Got a couple exceptions – people like Maddox – why? Because he kicks ass on behalf of the people he represents. But he is a unicorn – he’s the exception, not the rule. The usual rule is the people in elected office have somehow become extremely selfish, not “big picture”, don’t care about the people they represent, only in it for the shine and all of a sudden above people. But man, I’m as regular as they come. Im born and raised in the city, my family grew up in public housing.
I am Birmingham. I’m not above anybody. And my administration is gonna be like that – we are gonna bust our ass to take care of people. In that space there are a couple of hallmarks. We are gonna be overly transparent. You’re gonna know everything we are doing because it’s gonna be available online. Minimum once a week we’re gonna have time for people just – they can come in, they can come in – just come in the office – what do you wanna talk about? Wanna talk about that pothole or your tire, 15-30 time, tell me the color of the pothole, whatever you want to talk about, open. Then we are gonna solve it of course. But the reason we’re gonna work – I believe – this is the most talking I’ll do today, I believe in listening more than I talk. My great-grandmother used to live with us the last 9 years of her life. She died at 100. She was blind from diabetes, but I spent a lot of time with her. I tell ya, she taught me two things. She taught me old women are patient and she taught me how to listen. She couldn’t see. She had to listen. I learned to listen.
Be scared of the politician or the elected official or the public servant that talks too much. Listen to people. Listening you can really solve issues and address problems. You can. All of us – it’s easy form the problems. Trying to get people to form the solutions. One of the ways to do that is to be overly transparent. Be open.
I’ll probably have to get another phone, cause everybody will be calling. But make myself available via text, via email, office hours, Facebook – respond to people. People don’t have to agree with you, but never, never let it be said that you didn’t even respond to people.

Steven: Yeah, you don’t have to agree but you should respect each other. And that’s the big issue in America today

Randall: So – using Bentley as an example, man he’s so defiant. We see our elected officials do something that they know they did then they double-down on what they did and say “I’m scared to go to jail man” heh,
I’ve seen enough people go personally, I’m not going. Keep that in mind. It’s not my money, keep that in mind, and we are on borrowed time and borrowed space. So this is – out here – really why we’re doing it.

What we’re really trying to do, honestly with our administration,literally is improve people’s quality of life. So if you are an elderly person in this city, my job is to make you feel safe on your porch, or in your front yard. That’s fighting crime.
I don’t personally think you should live in a food desert, so I need to be intentional about – we talk about industry recruitment, job recruitment, lets talk about grocery recruitment. Let’s kill food deserts in our city. So if you’re an elderly person, should you have to drive 15 minutes, 20 minutes to a grocery store? Or can you get access to healthy foods and prescription drugs in proximity to where you live? That’s not a governor’s job, it’s not a president’s job. I gotta take care of people. So if I keep that in mind, that’s just an example. Gave you an example on education, talked about business. If I keep in mind the commitment to take care of people, like literally improve their quality of life – there is no personal enhancement, so it’s not personal. Be overly transparent. Tell people when you messed up. Look them in the face and apologize and say how can I make it better – and keep moving. So…that’s pretty much it.

David: Have you got any more questions?

Steven: We’ll let you get on with your day, we covered everything that I wanted to cover at least. Our spectrum of interest is definitely education, which we definitely talked about at length

David: Yeah, thats so connected to all walks of life

Steven: Which is education is sometimes kinda thought of separately in terms of everything else but it all comes together ya know –
Randall: Well it’s actually the linch- I think it’s – I think if you got a family that lives in poverty, that stays in public housing, and doesn’t have transportation, children come to school hungry, you got all these priorities of keeping a roof over their head – basic needs, our priorities – not education. This lane over here when I talk about the city has a responsibility to say how do we support investing and taking care of our families. It’s really investing in your families.
There’s a lot of poverty in this town, it’s not like Mobile or Tuscaloosa, right? Where Birmingham is not just the largest city in the state, Birmingham is like the 4th blackest city in the United States of America. But this overwhelming amount of concentrated poverty. It’s just concentrated.
It’s not like Atlanta where you have every class you can think of – you got poor, you got working poor, you got middle class, and every other class you can think of after that.
It’s just concentrated here. And they wonder why the crime rate is the way it is, why unemployment is the rate it is, homelessness the rate it is, or property value the rate it is, it’s all correlated. Only way you fix it – education. Literally, the only way. The only way. Anybody got another way – tell me, I’ll do it. I’m all ears.

Steven: We definitely agree with that

David: For sure, for sure.

Randall: Yeah man. I’m honored to meet both of y’all

David: Thank you Randall for your time

Randall: Absolutely brother

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May 11, 2017, published June-July 2017
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Thank you for spending your time with TPR and Randall Woodfin.