Birmingham Council President William Parker of District 4 and incumbent Councilman John Hilliard of District 9 have lost their bids for re-election to challengers in the city’s municipal run-offs on Tuesday.
J.T Moore, a Woodlawn-based community activist, received 58.44 percent of the total vote for the District 4 seat, with Parker receiving 41.56 percent of the total vote.
LaTonya Tate, a former healthcare worker in Jefferson county and founder of the Alabama Justice Initiative, received 51.57 percent of the total vote for District 4, closely beating incumbent John Hilliard, who received 48.43 percent of the vote.
According to the City Clerks Office, only 3,919 ballots were cast in Tuesday’s rainy run-off, a turn out of 8 percent of the city’s 46,734 registered voters.
Parker, a former member of the Alabama House of Representatives, was appointed to District 4 in 2013 after the death of Councilor Maxine Parker, who was Parker’s mother. Parker ran for the subsequently special election in 2014 and won the election against two former District 4 councilors, Edward Maddox and Gwen Sykes. After former Council President Jay Roberson resigned from the council in 2018, Parker was selected as council president.
Hilliard, like Parker, was also a member of the Alabama House of Representatives, beating former Birmingham Mayor Bernard Kincaid in a run-off for the Democratic Primary for House District 60. During the 2017 municipal elections, Hilliard was elected to the District 9 seat. Hilliard is the brother of former U.S. Rep. Earl Hilliard, the first African-American elected to Congress from Alabama since reconstruction.
For the Board of Education run-offs, challenger Sherman Collins Jr. won by only nine votes, 394-385, over incumbent Douglas Ragland in District 1. Jason Meadows handily won Sandra Brown’s seat in District 9 with 72 percent of the vote over Le’Darius Hilliard.
