Mayor Steven Reed
Mayor, City of Montgomery, AL
Steven L. Reed is the Mayor of the historic city of Montgomery, Alabama, and President of the African American Mayors Association.
He is the first Black Mayor to lead the city, commonly known as the “Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement” in its 205-year history. It is not only home to the first church Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led, but also the home of Mrs. Rosa Parks, whose courageous activism in 1955 ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott which became the transformational civic protest that would change the United States.
Mayor Reed is equally committed to leading Montgomery into a strong and prosperous economic future. Under his leadership, Meta just announced plans to build an $800M 715,000-square-foot next-generation data center. In the last two years, he has helped lead the state in economic development with over $3 Billion announced in capital investments with expansions from Amazon, Hyundai, and Manna Beverages, just to name a few. This comes as he sharpens his focus on Foreign Trade Investment and the use of public-private partnerships to reshape the economic foundation of Central Alabama. He has secured grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation and investment from The Conservation Fund to revitalize communities along the Historic Selma-Montgomery Voting Rights Trail.
During his tenure, Mayor Reed successfully led a transformational ballot initiative to increase investment in Montgomery’s public school system for the first time in the city’s history. Additionally, his focus on public safety and neighborhood collaboration has reduced crime and stronger relationships between the police and the public they serve.
Mayor Reed is a United States Conference of Mayors Board of Trustees member and was selected to join the 2024 Rodel Fellowship Class, the nation’s premier leadership development program for state and local elected officials.
Mayor Reed is an accomplished author. His memoir “FIRST, BEST: Lessons in Leadership and Legacy from Today’s Civil Rights Movement” reflects on his childhood growing up in the shadow of the Civil Rights Movement and his circuitous path to becoming Montgomery’s first Black mayor.
Mayor Reed graduated from Morehouse College cum laude and earned a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. He and his wife, Tamika, are the proud parents of three children.