Mayor Joseph Smitherman

(1929–2005)

Joseph Smitherman served as Mayor of Selma, Alabama for five terms across four decades — a political career that began in the era of segregation and ended in an unlikely redemption arc. He was mayor on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers attacked marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the event that became known as Bloody Sunday, one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement. Smitherman later acknowledged his complicity in that history and worked to build bridges with the Black community — earning re-election in 2000 with significant African-American support. As one observer put it: "He can do the reformed redneck better than anyone else."

Connection

Justin Fox regularly interviewed Smitherman and, in 1991, introduced him to Joel Anderson and Pauline Kleingeld — creating a memorable encounter between a Alabama segregationist-turned-reformer and a Dutch philosopher and her partner.

Why Herbert Would Be Delighted

For Herbert — a pastor and theologian whose commitments include racial justice and reconciliation — knowing that he's one degree from the mayor who stood at the bridge on Bloody Sunday, and two degrees from the march itself, is a connection of profound moral weight. The complexity of Smitherman's story (complicity, time, partial redemption) is also exactly the kind of human texture that Herbert's pastoral theology has always engaged.

Cross-Connections

• Pauline Kleingeld – met Smitherman directly in 1991, introduced by Justin Fox
• Joel Anderson – was present at the same introduction in 1991