Alabama town with 80 per cent black residents will finally vote for their leaders after white officials refused to accept a black mayor after decades of keeping the job for themselves
Residents of an overwhelmingly black town will finally vote for its leaders after its white minority appointed themselves for decades.
Newbern, Alabama, about 40 miles west of Selma with a population of 133 has a mayor-council government but has not held elections for six decades.
Instead, town officials were 'hand-me-down' positions with the mayor appointing a successor and the successor appointing council members.
Black volunteer firefighter Patrick Braxton, 57, decided to challenge this in April 2020 when he stood for the scheduled election.
Patrick Braxton, 57, stood for election of Newbern, Alabama , population 133, in April 2020 and was certified mayor that July after no one else filed the paperwork
Newbern, a tiny town about 40 miles west of Selma, has a mayor-council government but has not held elections for six decades
He was certified mayor that July after no one else 'bothered' to file the paperwork.
However, unhappy that a black man was declared mayor for the first time in the town's 170-year history, the former council conspired to overturn it.
They held a secret meeting on October 6, 2020, and resolved to hold a special election in which they reelected themselves and former mayor Haywood Stokes III.
Braxton found the locks to the town hall were changed, and he was denied access to Newbern's bank accounts and official mail - and told he was 'not the mayor'.
He and the four councilors he appointed in 2020 sued and spent the years since fighting through the Alabama court system.
Months before a scheduled trial in November, a settlement was reached this week that officially installed Braxton as mayor and scheduled its first elections in decades.
'I'm pleased with the outcome and the community is pleased. I think they are more pleased that they can voice their opinion and vote,' Braxton said.
The settlement, which must be approved by US District Judge Kristi DuBose, will return Braxton as the town's major and immediately grant him access to town hall.
'Braxton is the lawful mayor of Newbern, and he shall hold all the powers, privileges, duties… entrusted to the mayor of Newbern under Alabama state law,' the settlement read.
All other 'individuals holding themselves out as town officials will effectively resign and/or cease all responsibilities with respect to serving in any town position or maintaining any town property or accounts'.
Stokes and the other defendants did not have to admit wrongdoing and 'deny having engaged in any wrongful practice, or other unlawful conduct'.
Unhappy white former councilors held a secret meeting on October 6, 2020, and resolved to hold a special election in which they reelected themselves and former mayor Haywood Stokes III (pictured)
Rev Michael Malcon, left, executive director of the The Peoples Justice Council and Patrick Braxton are pictured in May 2022, when Malcon visited Newbern
Braxton will within 14 days submit names of four new councilmembers to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey to appoint, or hold a special election on December 31.
The town will hold its first competitive municipal elections in decades at the regularly scheduled, but never actually conducted, time next year.
Braxton's legal fees will be paid by the town's funds and Newbern's finances independently audited by accountants jointly agreed upon by Stokes and Braxton.
Newbern's 'hand-me-down' leadership practice resulted in an overwhelmingly white government in a town where black residents outnumber white ones 80 per cent to 20 per cent.
Of voting age residents, 64.3 per cent are black and 34.8 per cent are white, according to census data.
Stokes' father, Haywood Stokes Jr, was mayor before him, and another mayor, Robert Walthall, was in office for 44 years last century.
'Patrick Braxton accomplished something no other black resident of the City of Newbern had ever accomplished since the city's founding in 1854: he was duly elected mayor of the city,' his lawsuit stated.
'However, the minority white residents of the city, long accustomed to exercising total control over city government, refused to accept this outcome.'
Braxton found the locks to the town hall were changed, and he was denied access to Newbern's bank accounts and official mail - told he was 'not the mayor'
Braxton decided to run for mayor at the 2020 election because he felt the town's black community was not being well served during the pandemic.
He approached Stokes to ask, man to man, how to throw his hat in the ring.
'Stokes gave Braxton wrong information about how to qualify and what was needed to qualify,' the lawsuit claimed.
He claimed Stokes told him the town couldn't hold an election as it had no ballots or voting machines.
Braxton figured it out on his own, filed the paperwork, and paid a $50 fee to qualify for election before the deadline.
County Probate Judge Arthur Crawford called him in late July 2020 to tell him he won the election by default as no one else applied.
As there were also no entries for the four town councilmembers, Crawford and fourth circuit judge Marvin Wiggins told him to appoint one.
Braxton said he wanted to unite the town and approached both black and white residents about serving with him, but only black ones agreed.
He chose James Ballard, Barbara Patrick, Janice Quarles, and Wanda Scott and they were sworn in on November 2, 2020, and filed their oaths with Crawford.
Braxton, just outside town hall, looks across the street toward Newbern Mercantile, the only store there, which clack people seldom frequent
He and the four councilors he appointed in 2020 sued (pictured with some of his lawyers) and have spent the years since fighting through the Alabama court system
While all this was going on, Braxton had no idea Stokes and his former council were moving against him in the shadows.
'When confronted with the first duly-elected black mayor and majority black town council, all defendants undertook racially motivated actions to prevent the first black mayor from exercising the duties of this position,' the lawsuit read.
The lawsuit detailed how they 'conspired with the other defendant to unlawfully remain in office in order to prevent a majority black town council from taking office.'
'In order to do this... [they] met in secret' on October 6, 2020 'without giving notice of the meeting and adopted resolutions to conduct a special election'.
The lawsuit claimed they then filed statements of candidacy before deeming themselves the only people to qualify for the special election.
They assumed their new terms as town council members in November of that year, leaving Braxton and his handpicked helpers out in the cold.
Gary Broussard, Jesse Donald Leverett, Voncille Brown Thomas and Willie Richard Tucker, all white residents, were elected in the secret poll.
Due to the election not being publicized, Braxton said, only they qualified.
They then 'effectively reappointed themselves' to their positions, the suit states, and 'unlawfully assumed their new terms'.
The white council was sworn in at the office of City Attorney William Holmes and filed with Crawford just 10 days after Braxton and his council.
Stokes III, pictured. Stokes's office says that all of their actions, 'at all times relevant to this lawsuit... were acting under the color of law'
Of voting age residents, 64.3 per cent are black and 34.8 per cent are white, according to census data
When Braxton got wind of another council being mysteriously appointed, he refused to meet with them as that would give them some legitimacy.
They responded by secretly stripping Braxton of his office and appointing Stokes instead.
Braxton and his council held one meeting in the town hall in November before a series of farcical events played out.
First he realized Stokes had given many of his cronies keys to the building despite them having no business there, so he changed the locks.
He also found the town hall completely cleaned out with all the records gone except for a couple of boxes.
Then in December, he discovered the locks were changed and he couldn't get in. He managed to change them again in January 2021, but by April, he claimed Stokes locked him out yet again.
Stokes and his cabal also moved to block Braxton from getting anything done by denying him access to the town's funds and mail.
Bank staff refused to accept his oath of office, telling him he was not the mayor. The post office told him it got an email saying he wasn't the mayor and couldn't get the town's mail.
He claimed to have been barred access the town's PO box since Lynn Theibe, also a defendant in the case, was appointed to the postmaster position in late 2021.
In the filing, lawyers for Braxton allege Theibe was and is 'acting in concert and/or at the request' of Stokes and his council.
Things got even more weird as time went on and Braxton refused to back down.
He told The Guardian he saw drones following him and his family around town and hovering near his and his mother's homes, and a white driver tried to run him off the road.
Then in October 2022, Braxton's local civil rights activist ally LaQuenna Lewis came home from the movies to find her house on fire.
Lewis and her four children, aged 2, 8, 12 and 15, were left homeless and she told the Guardian she believed the fire was connected to her support for Braxton after she got threatening mail.
'You f*kcking n****r b***h get your n****r ass out of my town right now with non n****r mayor braxton or die or get burn down,' one note began.
'I've been watching you 4 kids right and your n****r new home. If you do [sic] get out of my town you and that n****r non mayor Braxton gona [sic] die.'
The note had swastikas and a drawing of Braxton and Lewis being hanged from a tree.
Braxton's local civil rights activist ally LaQuenna Lewis (pictured) came home from the movies to find her house on fire
A photo of Lewis' house as it was consumed by fire in October 2022
Lewis and her four children, aged 2, 8, 12 and 15, were left homeless and she believed the fire was connected to her support for Braxton after she got threatening mail
Another time, a black woman flagged Braxton down and told him her elderly sister was in cardiac arrest, he told the newspaper.
He rushed to the fire department to get the defibrillator but found he was locked out of the building. He went home, then came back and managed to get inside.
But by the time he reached the ailing woman, it was too late. She was dead.
Stokes and his council then accused Braxton of theft and of not showing up to required training and served him suspension papers.
It was only when the Hale county emergency management agency director intervened that Braxton was reinstated.
As the lawsuit worked its way through court, Stokes and his councilors agreed with Braxton's assessment that they 'effectively reappointed themselves' to their positions, but said they did so within the confines of the law.
They 'admit that Plaintiff Patrick Braxton is Black and is the former Mayor of the Town of Newbern,' but denied several of the other allegations.
The defendants also admitted that Braxton initially was the only person to qualify for mayor at first, and that no other candidates qualified for mayor or council membership at the time.
A post to Facebook explained the position in greater details as Braxton sees them
They also admitted that a special election was held to put themselves in town council positions, and 'that Defendant Stokes became Mayor of the Town of Newbern after Plaintiff Braxton lost the position by operation of law.'
However, they maintained - until the settlement - that their secret special election was legitimate.
'There is no clearly established law regarding what to do when an Alabama town does not hold elections for decades,' their response to the lawsuit read.
'Based on the allegations of the complaint, the Newbern Defendants certainly could have attempted to rectify the situation by doing exactly what they did, i.e. holding another election, installing legitimate council members, and installing a legitimate mayor pursuant to Alabama law.'
