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July 25, 2024 Story by: Editor
Residents of a small town in Alabama will finally be able to participate in their own municipal elections after decades of being denied the right. Following a four-year legal battle, a proposed settlement has been reached, allowing the town of Newbern, which is predominantly Black with 133 residents, to hold its first legitimate elections in over 60 years. The town is now set to hold elections in 2025.
The settlement was filed on June 21 and still awaits approval from U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose.
For years, Newbern’s mayor and council members were appointed by white officials instead of being elected by the community. Most residents were unaware that they were supposed to vote for these positions.
“This is just one of many examples of the country’s long standing racist practices that deny Black folks the right to vote,” said Leah Wong, a voting rights attorney with the Legal Defense Fund. “White folks in this town essentially handed down the positions of power to one another. Throughout the decades, there were never any municipal elections held for mayor or town council. Black folks weren’t even told how to get on the town council.”
Newbern, located about an hour from Selma, where civil rights activists famous marches for voting rights in 1965, will see history being made with this settlement.
The agreement will reinstate Patrick Braxton as Newbern’s mayor, making him the first Black person to hold the position in the town’s 170-year history. Braxton’s journey to this role was first covered by Capital B News.
In 2020, Braxton won the mayoral race by default as he was the only candidate to file the necessary paperwork. The incumbent, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, failed to file the paperwork, despite being part of a family that had controlled the mayor’s office for decades—his father, Haywood Stokes Jr., had previously served as mayor.
After Braxton assumed office, he faced multiple challenges. The town hall locks were changed, and the council members held a secret special election in which they re-elected themselves, subsequently reappointing Stokes III as mayor in 2021. Stokes has been acting as mayor ever since.
As the Legal Defense Fund highlighted in their lawsuit, there were no public announcements for this special election, so most of the town’s residents were unaware of its occurrence.
Leah Wong emphasized the broader significance of this case, stating, “This case matters so much because, on its face, it sounds so absurd that this could happen, but we see it mirrored in different parts of society all the time… It’s not until we challenge those conditions do we realize how much work is being done from other folks to keep it that way.”
Since being blocked from office, Braxton has been unable to access town funds and has used his own money to support the community, providing COVID-19 supplies and organizing food drives and events, as reported by The Guardian.
Braxton expressed his commitment to Newbern, telling *HuffPost*, “My heart goes out to the town and the people in the town. Whatever I can do to make sure everything goes on and goes smoothly, I would do it for the community.”
He added, “Moving forward, my plans are trying to keep the community together and not be divided.” Source: Huff Post
