Patrick Braxton became the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama, when he was elected in 2020, but since then he has fought with the previous administration to actually serve in office. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
NEWBERN, Ala. â Thereâs a power struggle in Newbern, Alabama, and the rural townâs first Black mayor is at war with the previous administration who he says locked him out of Town Hall.
After years of racist harassment and intimidation, Patrick Braxton is fed up, and in a federal civil rights lawsuit he is accusing town officials of conspiring to deny his civil rights and his position because of his race.
âWhen I first became mayor, [a white woman told me] the town was not ready for a Black mayor,â Braxton recalls.
The town is 85% Black, and 29% of Black people here live below the poverty line.
âWhat did she mean by the town wasnât ready for a Black mayor? They, meaning white people?â Capital B asked.
âYes. No change,â Braxton says.
Decades removed from a seemingly Jim Crow South, white people continue to thwart Black political progress by refusing to allow them to govern themselves or participate in the countryâs democracy, several residents told Capital B. While litigation may take months or years to resolve, Braxton and community members are working to organize voter education, registration, and transportation ahead of the 2024 general election.
But the tension has been brewing for years.
Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black personâs home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
In another incident, Braxton, who was off duty at the time, overheard an emergency dispatch call for a Black woman experiencing a heart attack. He drove to the fire station to retrieve the automated external defibrillator, or AED machine, but the locks were changed, so he couldnât get into the facility. He raced back to his house, grabbed his personal machine, and drove over to the house, but he didnât make it in time to save her. Braxton wasnât able to gain access to the building or equipment until the Hale County Emergency Management Agency director intervened, the lawsuit said.
âI have been on several house fires by myself,â Braxton says. âThey hear the radio and wouldnât come. I know they hear it because I called dispatch, and dispatch set the tone call three or four times for Newbern because we got a certain tone.â
This has become the new norm for Braxton ever since he became the first Black mayor of his hometown in 2020. For the past three years, heâs been fighting to serve and hold on to the title of mayor, first reported by Lee Hedgepeth, a freelance journalist based in Alabama.
Incorporated in 1854, Newbern, Alabama, today has a population of 275 people â 85% of whom are Black. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
Not only has he been locked out of the town hall and fought fires alone, but heâs been followed by a drone and unable to retrieve the townâs mail and financial accounts, he says. Rather than concede, Haywood âWoodyâ Stokes III, the former white mayor, along with his council members, reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about.
Braxton is suing them, the Peopleâs Bank of Greensboro, and the postmaster at the U.S. Post Office.
For at least 60 years, thereâs never been an election in the town. Instead, the mantle has been treated as a âhand me downâ by the small percentage of white residents, according to several residents Capital B interviewed. After being the only one to submit qualifying paperwork and statement of economic interests, Braxton became the mayor.
âOne flesh, one endâ - Gideon the Ninth Fan comic
I can finally post this! Hereâs my take of the infamous pool scene! đâïž This took me forever to draw and I was always very tired when working on this, so please forgive for all the inaccuracies and mistakes đââïž (I know they had a forehead kiss, IâM SORRY I FORGOT;;) Still had a lot of fun drawing this!
