Black Man Claims He Won Mayoral Election but Can’t Take Office Due to Racism

A Black man has filled a federal civil rights lawsuit, claiming he was duly elected mayor of an Alabama town but was prevented from taking office by White leaders of the community.

Patrick Braxton, 57, claims “minority White residents” of the town of Newburn refused to accept the outcome of a mayoral race held in 2020 after he, a Black man, allegedly won the election. Instead of allowing him to take office, Braxton claimed the acting mayor of Newbern, Haywood Stokes III, worked with town council members to hold a special election in which Stokes was re-elected to the mayoral seat, CBS News reported.

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. https://t.co/zMh4LEnI6w

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 22, 2023

Braxton further alleged Newbern had not held an election “for decades” prior to his purported 2020 win. Instead, he claimed, the office of mayor was “inherited by a hand-picked successor” who then appointed his own town council members, the outlet reported.

Despite the town’s 85% Black population, Braxton claimed all previous mayors were White and that only one Black person had ever served on Newbern’s town council.

Braxton stated he approached Stokes for information on how to run for mayor in 2020 over concerns the needs of the Black community were not being met. Braxton alleged Stokes then gave him “wrong information” about how to qualify for mayor, failing to tell him he needed to provide public notice to residents about the election. (Read more from “Black Man Claims He Won Mayoral Election but Can’t Take Office Due to Racism” HERE)

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