Patrick Braxton said that the "minority White residents ... long accustomed to exercising total control over the government, refused to accept his election as mayor.

A Black man who says he was elected mayor of a rural Alabama town but has been kept from taking office by White leaders of the town has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.

  • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
    0·
    1 year ago

    Braxton said in the lawsuit, which CBS News reviewed, that Newbern had not held an election “for decades.” Instead, “the office of mayor was ‘inherited’ by a hand-picked successor,” and that mayor then chose town council members, again without an election. All prior mayors have been White residents, the lawsuit said, even though about 85% of Newbern’s population is Black. Only one Black person has ever served on the town council.

    • Jackcooper@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Inheriting political positions is literally anti-American. We fought a war over this. Fucking Alabama.

    • ed_cock@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      Braxton was allegedly the only person who qualified for the position of mayor, according to the lawsuit. Stokes “did not bother to qualify as a candidate,” the lawsuit said, even though he knew Braxton was planning to run. No candidates qualified for town council positions, either.

      Braxton was elected mayor by default, making him the first Black mayor of Newbern in the 165 years since the town was founded.

      That’s an important bit of context, they still didn’t have a proper election.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        They did have a proper election. There was only one candidate, so he won. Then they had a second, improper election where only the previous council was allowed to qualify for office or vote.

        • ed_cock@kbin.social
          01·
          1 year ago

          Legally yes, but part of the article makes it sound like there was a regular election between two candidates with everything you expect and the winner is being denied. That’s not the case and we don’t know how the citizens actually feel about this. It did, after all, take decades for someone to do this.

          Not that any of this should have ever happened in the first place, they should have just run the elections normally.