Woman Makes History as Alabama City's First Black Woman Mayor

Millennials and Gen Z are fighting for their voices to be heard, and one 26-year-old will be on the front lines and make history in the process.

Ciara Smith of Anniston, Alabama, has been elected mayor, making her not only the youngest but the first Black woman to hold that office.

A HBCU Spelman College graduate, she previously served as vice mayor for five years before she stepped into the role of mayor after Jack Draper resigned following an eight-year stint. She’s had the job since May, but with the term ending soon, she faced off against four others and easily won the election with 57% of the votes.

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While she’s been in politics for years, the weight of her new appointment hasn’t quite hit her yet.

“If I’m being honest, I don’t feel the full magnitude of it yet,” she told Jackson State University, which is where she earned her Master of Public Administration. “So, at this stage, I don’t feel the difference because this is the work that I love to do,” she said. “This is the work that I have been doing continuously.”

But now that she’s no longer the interim mayor and has earned her constituents’ votes, she acknowledges all that came before her to make her success possible.

“I was the one who shattered the glass ceiling, but there were some people who beat on it for me to get here,” she said. “There are people who did not make it to this point. So, I want to acknowledge that, yes, I am a woman, and yes, I’m the youngest, but I am also extremely knowledgeable and extremely qualified. It’s an honorable feeling, but there’s also the feeling that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” 

She got her start in politics as a teenager, according to Blavity, which reports she worked in the City of Anniston’s Financial Department in high school. While at Spelman, she campaigned for former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Then she interned for Congressman Hank Johnson, who encouraged her to join the Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s training boot camp in Washington, D.C.

The training paid off as quickly as 2020, when she won the council member position, making her the youngest elected official in Anniston.

After becoming vice mayor at 21 years old, she calls her rise in politics a learning experience and has some advice for other young adults unsatisfied with the world around them: “Position yourself to make it better.” 

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26-Year-Old Ciara Smith Makes History as This Alabama City’s First Black Woman Mayor  was originally published on cassiuslife.com