NEWBERN, Ala. — A suggested settlement deal says that the first black mayor of a small Alabama town will return to his job. He said that white officials kept him out of town hall.
As part of a plan to end a lawsuit between Braxton and the town of Newbern, Patrick Braxton will be accepted as the legitimate mayor of the town of Newbern. The settlement was made on Friday. If U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose agrees, it will end the long-running fight over who runs the town government. Braxton will become the town’s first Black mayor, and a new city council will be able to be elected.
I’m happy with how things turned out, and so is the group. “I think they’re happier that they can vote and say what they think,” Braxton, 57, said Monday.
There are 133 people living in the small town of Newbern, which is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Selma. The town has a mayor-council government, but it hasn’t had elections in sixty years. According to the lawsuit brought by Braxton and others, town officials were “hand-me-down” jobs, where the mayor chose a replacement and the replacement chose council members. That practice led to a government that was mostly white in a town where black people outnumbered white people by a 2:1 margin.
Braxton, a Black volunteer fireman, met the requirements to run for mayor without a party affiliation in 2020. He was the only candidate, so he was elected mayor of the town. As other mayors have done, he set up a town council. But Braxton said he had a lot of problems when he tried to get elected.
In a lawsuit against Newbern, Braxton, and others said that town officials “worked together to stop the first Black mayor from carrying out the duties and powers of his new job” and to stop the town’s first majority-Black council from taking their seats. People told them that the locks on the town hall were changed and that Braxton was not allowed to access the town’s bank accounts. A lawsuit said that the council that was leaving held a hidden meeting to set up a special election and “fraudulently re-appointed themselves as the town council.”
The town’s leaders denied doing anything wrong. Before they agreed to pay, the defendants said in court documents that Braxton’s claim to be mayor was “invalid” and that the special election was okay.
As part of the planned settlement, Braxton will come back to town as the major and be able to go to town hall right away. The plan says that anyone else who poses as a town official will “effectively resign and/or cease all responsibilities concerning serving in any town position or maintaining any town property or accounts.”
The seats on the Newbern City Council will be filled by selection or by a special election. Braxton will give Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (a Republican) names of people to select. If the decisions are not made, there will be a special election to fill the roles.
City elections will be held in the town in 2025.
The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, which represents Braxton and the people he chose for the council, would not say anything. When an email was sent to the lawyer for the suspect in the case, it wasn’t answered right away.
