Marilyn James-Johnson sat on her walker with a microphone and speaker at a corner of the stage along 17th Street North at Kelly Ingram Park.

The 57-year-old North Titusville resident sang her rendition of Jennifer Hudson’s “The Impossible Dream.”

Some might think James-Johnson’s dream of becoming the next mayor of Birmingham – unseating two-term incumbent Randall Woodfin and emerging from a field of nine candidates – is an impossible dream. Some might say the third-floor office of the mayor at City Hall is the unreachable star for a woman with mobility challenges who travels around town via Lift or Paratransit.

But you can’t count James-Johnson among those doubters.

“I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me,” she said. “When it said the unreachable star, (it’s talking about) reaching for bigger things. Reaching for my dreams, my visions, everything that I’ve been dreaming forever since I was a little girl.

“I’m aiming for those things,” the candidate said. “God is making it possible for me this year because this is my time and my season.”

As a 1986 graduate of West Blocton High School, James-Johnson envisioned herself as an entertainer. Her mother, Dorothy Mae Collins James, advised that she get an education, studying computer science.

It was her late mother who inspired the candidate to seek office. She remembers and is motivated by her mother as a neighborhood advocate.

“Whenever it was a problem in our hometown, my mother would get her complaints, as well as other people’s complaints in the community and she would go down to town to the mayor’s office,” James-Johnson said. “She would get to him and let him know what was going on. He would send some of the guys out to look and evaluate what was going on and then they’d get it fixed.”

The candidate says Birmingham needs to be fixed. She remembers it in a brighter light, a light that guided people to a destination.

“Birmingham used to be booming back in the ’80s and ’90s,” she said. “Birmingham used to be the place where everybody loved to go. Every time someone come home … when my family from all over came home from up north, they always wanted to come here to Birmingham because Birmingham used to be the place to come to.

“Back then, Birmingham was a place to come to without people being afraid to come to Birmingham,” James-Johnson said. “Now, it’s at a point where people are afraid to come to Birmingham.”

The candidate cited her encounter with parents who were bringing their daughter to college and were afraid to leave her.

“We gathered around, and we had prayer and everything,” she said.  “After that, they felt more comfortable.”

James-Johnson introduces herself as a licensed evangelist, one who was homeless for nearly a year a year ago. She pointed to the back right corner of the Kelly Ingram Park stage where she huddled at night with her 3-year-old pit bull DJ, named after her parents Dorothy Mae Collins James and Joseph James Jr.

“We slept there for about two weeks until we were asked to leave,” she said, adding that she and her pet wound up in George Ward Park before arriving at her current North Titusville home.

James-Johnson said that experience opened her eyes and her heart to the needs of the less fortunate. She intends to bring that knowledge to the mayor’s office if elected during the Aug. 26 municipal election.

It is an office she started visiting eight years ago as she began advocating for homeless people.

“I made a vow to the Lord a long time ago,” she said. “My motto is, if I can help somebody along the way, then I know my living here on Earth would not be in vain. Plus, (Jesus) tells us that you do to the least of them, you do it unto me.

“I’m one of the least,” she continued. “I know how it feels to be a ‘least’ person. I know how it is to be mistreated. I know how it is to be looked down on, to be passed (over), to not be given an opportunity to do things that you really desire to do.”

James-Johnson’s ministry includes visits to the stage at Kelly Ingram Park, inspiring people – including those who are homeless – with song.

“I know for a fact (that) God gave me this platform right here and he gave me the platform at Linn Park to come out and sing,” she said.  “People be so happy. They tell me I make their day. But they really don’t know; they make my day as well.”

James-Johnson’s campaign platform is an extension of her ministry.

“We would take some time – city councilman, everybody – we would have prayer days,” she said. “And we wouldn’t just have one prayer day in Birmingham. We would have prayer often, so that we can keep our city prayed up at all times.”

Despite not owning her own vehicle, the candidate has heard frequent complaints from motorists.

“Everybody talks about how their cars (are) being torn up because of the roads,” she said. “That would be one thing. Another thing is to put streetlights up where they belong. There’re several places that I see where it needs to be a streetlight set … before something happens. Most of the time, people wait until after something happens before they decide to do something.”

The North Titusville resident also wants to address a complaint she’s heard from city seniors about litter.

“There used to be a time when people got fined for (littering), especially like if they were driving and they threw something out the window,” she said.

James-Johnson has an adult son and will soon have a granddaughter. Her campaign centers on printed posters and visiting churches. She has a campaign website set up, which currently is a work in progress.