Black man who says he was elected mayor of Alabama town alleges that White leaders are keeping him from position
Black man who says he was elected mayor of Alabama town alleges that White leaders are keeping him from position
Patrick Braxton said that the "minority White residents of (Newburn), 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.
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.
113Inheriting political positions is literally anti-American. We fought a war over this. Fucking Alabama.
60Braxton 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.
24Sounds fucky
6
If this happened in 2021 and 2022 why wait till now to file a federal lawsuit?
9No one would take his case.
15Not just that, the first lawyers he approached scammed him I think.
11
America needs free and reformed education and more psychedelics.
5Do you see either of those happening anytime soon?
1
It's a shame, aside from all the racism, Newbern actually seems like a lovely little southern small town.
To clarify, this came in response to looking up Newbern on Google maps and seeing the only photo attached to the town is a group of smiling black women celebrating the 4th of July. If that's the representation of the town, it seems like a nice place.
I probably should have said more specifically 'aside from the racist white minority leadership it seems like it could be a really nice place.' Nice places can have shit leaders. Was happy to see the town hall already has some one star reviews in response to this story. Hopefully more attention will help them toss the bigots to the curb.
3I dunno, man. The racism sounds like it’s one of the towns primary characteristics.
30Yeah lol. You can’t really “aside from the racism” when that’s their primary focus.
21Pretty sure the more than %70 black/African American town population might disagree with you. Seems pretty unkind and disingenuous to paint a whole town as a shithole because some assholes are in charge.
1
It’s a shame, aside from all the racism, Newbern actually seems like a lovely little southern small town.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
3
There's 130 people that live in that town. No one there really gives a flying
0The real story is they don't even have a mayoral position, so a nothing story ginned to stoke hatred toward white people.
-36They do have a mayor position, they just didn't care for it until someone decided to run for it.
22Hating racists isn't the same as hating white people.
7Disagreeing with those specific people for their actions is not the same as hatred for white people. An asshole is an asshole whether they're black, white or green.
7I can see why you're racist if you don't got the braincells to seperate a couple people from the population.
Its not anti white to hate people who happen to be white
6Fuck off, bot.
4