City residents in Ferguson, Missouri headed to the polls in record numbers on Tuesday to elect three new city council members, two of which are black.

The election in Ferguson saw a 30 percent voter turnout, which is more than double the rate in the last election, where only 12.3 percent of Ferguson's registered voters went to the polls in April 2014.

The three candidates elected on Tuesday were "Ella Jones, an African-American professor; Wesley Bell, an African-American judge; and former Ferguson mayor Brian Fletcher, who is white," reports Reuters.

Jones defeated both white and black contenders to win the city council seat in Ward 1, with almost 50 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, Bell won the Ward 3 seat with nearly 67 percent of the vote, reports CNN.

For years, an overwhelming majority of white politicians have represented the city, despite the fact that two-thirds of Ferguson's 21,000 residents are black. Now, for the first time in the city's 120 year history, half of the six-member City Council are black.

Mayor James Knowles called the election a "milestone" for the city.

Tuesday's historic election was also the first since 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed in a police shooting last August. His death sparked a string of local protests and national outrage.

This election is also important because the new council will oversee the hiring of a new city manager, police chief and municipal judge in addition to determine the future direction of the Police Department.

The election comes eight months after Brown, an unarmed African-American teen, was shot by a white cop in August 2014. Although former Officer Darren Wilson was not charged in the shooting, the Justice Department released a scathing report that revealed the Ferguson Police Department was guilty of systemic racism against African Americans. The report also revealed that the city's former top court clerk and two high level police officers exchanged several racist and religiously insensitive emails between 2008 and 2011.