William A. Bell
Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama
William Anthony Bell Sr. (born June 1, 1949) is an American politician who served as the 33rd mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, from 2010 to 2017. He had previously held the office on an interim basis in 1999. Prior to that, he had served several terms on the Birmingham City Council. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Political career
Birmingham City Council
Bell was first elected to the Birmingham City Council in November 1979, and in 1985 became the first African-American selected to serve as council president.
Mayor
Bell was the only mayor in the city's history that brought in over $2 billion of business development for Birmingham and was instrumental in overseeing the renaissance of Birmingham with projects that brought international recognition including the World Games, the Senior Games, Railroad Park, Regions Baseball Field, worked with President Obama and UNESCO in naming Birmingham a World Heritage site and National Park that also recognized Birmingham's Civil Rights History. Other Civil Rights historical landmarks that are included in Bell's visionary project include the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Bethel Baptist Church, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the A.G. Gaston Motel and several other historical sites. Bell also led in the development of the Birmingham Sports Crossplex and over $300 million in capital improvements for the Birmingham City School System and the University of Alabama in Birmingham, in spite of coming into office with a $77 million deficit left by the prior administration. Bell grew the city of Birmingham reserves to over $350 million when he left office.
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This entry incorporates text from “William A. Bell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.