Three years after making history by being elected as the first African-American mayor of an Alabama town, Patrick Braxton has found his tenure marred by racial harassment and intimidation, preventing him from effectively governing the town.
He says the town of Newbern, Alabama, is ignoring his administration because he is Black.
Braxton alleges he is being politically bullied because of his race even though his town, made up of 275 people, is 85 percent Black. According to Braxton’s lawsuit, white citizens have been trusted to make decisions — even though they have not been elected.
The elected mayor filed a federal lawsuit, naming the current mayor and his council, People’s Bank of Greensboro and the postmaster at the U.S. Post Office as defendants, alleging white town officials violated his civil rights and obstructed his administration’s progress.
In an interview with Capital B, a nonprofit news organization, Braxton, 57, says that when he won his election during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a white woman told him that the whites in the then-166-year-old city were “not ready for a Black mayor.”
Braxton believes she was right, claiming that he has been locked out of the town hall, town mail and financial accounts used to govern the city’s budget and has been followed around by a drone.
He also pointed out that when he won, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, the white mayor he succeeded, reappointed himself to the office by order of a secret special election where the council passed a city resolution creating a new election and moving back the deadline to file for candidacy.
By law, Braxton was the sole qualified candidate. In 2020, then a volunteer firefighter, Braxton was the only one actually to submit paperwork.
Braxton stumbled upon discarded meeting minutes at city hall. In those minutes, it was disclosed that a councilman had put forth a resolution declaring Braxton as the mayor, and this resolution had been unanimously approved. However, Woody later said that Braxton’s election was a “mistake” and insisted on rectifying it through a new election, according to the lawsuit.
Consequently, many citizens remain confused about who the actual elected mayor is.
Stokes had never filed the paperwork in the past and was always allowed just to assume the position. This is also the same scenario for the council.
In an interview with Tread By Lee, business owner Todd McGilberry said he didn’t know who the mayor was, saying he thinks it is either Stokes or Braxton.
According to the federal civil rights complaint, Stokes and his council have violated both Braxton’s federal law and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by not recognizing his election.
Vickie Moore from the Alabama Conference of Black Mayors has been a pillar of support for Braxton. She says she believes race places a central role in his challenges.
She’s never come across instances in the state where unelected officials could serve in office.
Emmitt Riley III, a professor at The University of the South agrees, saying “it is a clear case of white [people] attempting to seize and maintain political power in the face of someone who went through the appropriate steps to qualify and to run for office and by default wins because no one else qualified.”
While the lawsuit will not immediately force change, Braxton is pushing to do more voter registration and education. He also has appointed three African-Americans to the city council.
