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.

  • 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.