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Small Alabama Town Wins Lawsuit Allowing Residents To Vote For First Time In Decades

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Small Alabama Town Wins Lawsuit Allowing Residents To Vote For First Time In Decades

Patrick Braxton, the first Black mayor in Newbern’s history, will be reinstated.

Small Alabama Town Wins Lawsuit Allowing Residents To Vote For First Time In Decades

For decades, white officials appointed Newbern’s mayor and council members in lieu of holding elections. Most residents weren’t even aware that there were supposed to be elections for these positions.

The settlement will reinstate Patrick Braxton as the mayor of Newbern, the first Black person to hold the position.

Braxton was the only candidate who filed qualifying paperwork with the county clerk in 2020, so he won the mayoral race by default. The incumbent, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, hadn’t even bothered to fill out the paperwork to run again. Haywood Stokes Jr., his father, had previously been mayor of the rural Black Belt town.

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16944653

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