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In hindsight lies the danger of oversimplification. Looking back, it is relatively easy to assign meaning to specific actions, to make broad observations about the zeitgeist of a particular era, and to discern historical patterns in the intersection of circumstances, events and personalities. From there, it is no great leap to divine the guiding hand of destiny on the shoulder of a person who "makes history."
So it is with Richard Arrington. It is tempting to examine the history of Birmingham, overlay it with the singular path Arrington traaveled to power, and conclude that perhaps only Fate -- or, as many of Arrington's staunchest supporters would have it, God -- could have brought place and person together at so perfectly precise a time. Arrington's decisions at critical junctures; the spheres of discussion and influence for which he became a common catalyst; the ways in which his training as a scientist and administrator shaped his approach to politics and government; the drama inherent in the story of a steelworker's son in the most segregated city in America becoming that city's first African-American mayor -- all suggest, at the very least, a person extraordinarily focused on an ultimate objective, exceptionally willing to take the personal actions necessary to achieve it, and uniquely prepared to meet each challenge that came his way.
For Arrington, the objective was equality of civic status and economic opportunity for African-Americans. Black people had limited educational options in the Alabama of the 1950s and 1960s? Arrington earned three college degrees and became a professor, department head and dean at Birmingham's Miles College. Alabama's historically black colleges were struggling to survive in the 1970s? Arrington left academia to establish a funding and development base that has helped sustain black-oriented higher education in the state to the present day. Birmingham's city government moved too slowly on affirmative action and turned a blind eye to police brutality against black citizens? Arrington won election to the City Council and quickened the pace of change by shining a relentless spotlight on both issues. The 1979 police killing of an unarmed black woman caused African-American leaders in Birmingham to decide the time had come to try and elect a black mayor? It was Arrington they drafted, and he...