Montgomery, Ala., elected the city's first African American mayor in its 200-year history on Tuesday.

Steven Reed, the Montgomery County probate judge, will become the mayor of the city known as the birthplace of the civil rights movement on Nov. 12, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

Reed beat out television station owner David Woods in a runoff election.

"This will be a historic day in Montgomery," author and historian Richard Bailey told the newspaper. "For the first time, the people of this city, especially African Americans, will be able to say that we have someone in the mayor's office who understands the pulse of the black community."

The mayor-elect was also the first African American elected to become the county's probate judge in 2012 and was the first judge in the state to issue same-sex marriage licenses, according to the newspaper.

Montgomery is one of three cities with a population more than 100,000 people in the six Deep South states that had not elected an African American as mayor, according to the Advertiser.