The first Black mayor of an Alabama town has won election by a landslide, four years after he ran unopposed and white residents locked him out of the town hall.

NEWBERN, Ala. (AP) — The first Black mayor of a tiny Alabama town overwhelmingly won election this week, four years after white residents locked him out of the town hall and refused to let him serve.

Incumbent Mayor Patrick Braxton was elected as the mayor of Newbern, winning 66 votes to his opponent’s 26, according to results posted by the town. His victory puts a punctuation mark in the dispute over control of the town government that drew national attention.

“The people came out and spoke and voted. Now, there ain’t no doubt what they want for this town,” Braxton said in a telephone interview Wednesday night.

The election Tuesday was the town’s first since at least the 1960s, held under a federal settlement. Black residents had sued, challenging what they called the town’s “hand-me-down governance” and refusal to let Braxton serve after he ran unopposed for mayor in 2020.

Newbern’s residents number just 133 people. A library, the town hall, a mercantile and a flashing caution light anchor the downtown, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Selma.

  • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    44·
    17 hours ago

    isn’t that town primarily Black as well?

    the white residents of newbern are literally doing a micro-apartheid, wow

    and how many other cities are like this?

    • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialEnglish
      384·
      17 hours ago

      Little few-dozen-people towns like this in the middle of nowhere are fucking wild sometimes. It’s just a bunch of people doing whatever they want, for the most part. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s real fucked and people who grow up and leave have some insane stories and basically never go back.

      Remember this when someone tells you “voting is a waste of time” “anarchism is better, we don’t need all these corrupt structures” or similar things. There’s a reason why we settled on the systems we have. The corruption that fucks them up is real, sure, and it’s a big problem, but it also exists in exactly the same form if you get rid of the system. It actually gets way worse.

      • Thassodar@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        15 hours ago

        It’s an old reference, but it reminds me of Nothing But Trouble with Chevy Chase from the early 90s.

        It’s an extremely tongue in cheek take on the good ol boy South, but it still holds some truth.