NEW BERN, Alabama (AP) — The first Black mayor of a small Alabama town won a landslide victory this week, four years after being voted out of office by white residents who refused to let him work.
Incumbent Mayor Patrick Braxton was elected mayor of New Bern by a vote of 66 to 26, according to results released by the city. His victory marks a turning point in a dispute over control of the township government that has drawn national attention.
“People came, they spoke, and they voted,” Braxton said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening. “Now there’s no question what they want for this city.”
Tuesday’s election was the first held in the city since at least the 1960s, under a federal agreement. Black residents filed a lawsuit to protest what they called the city’s “legacy administration” and its refusal to allow Braxton to run for mayor after her unopposed bid in 2020.
New Bern has a population of just 133. Around its downtown, about 40 miles west of Selma, are a library, a town hall, a store, and a flashing warning sign.
What the city lacked were elections.
Newbern’s mayor-council government had not been put to a vote for six decades. Instead, town officials held “hand-me-down” positions, with each mayor appointing a successor who appointed the council members, according to the lawsuit filed by Braxton and others. The result was an overwhelmingly white government in a town where Black residents outnumber white residents 2-1.
Braxton, a volunteer firefighter, qualified in 2020 to run for the nonpartisan position of mayor, and since he was the only candidate, he became the mayor-elect without an election. He then appointed a new town council, as other mayors have done.
But the locks were changed at the town hall, and Braxton was denied access to the town’s financial accounts. His lawsuit also alleged that outgoing council members held a secret meeting to set up a special election and “fraudulently reappointed themselves as the town council.”
“I only had the opportunity to serve one year out of five,” said Braxton, who finally took office last year after a three-year legal battle.
City officials denied any wrongdoing, arguing in court that Braxton’s claim to the mayoralty was “null and void.”
The settlement agreement included a promise to hold a mayoral election in 2025.
Braxton had an opponent this time: Laird Cole, a white auctioneer and real estate agent.
“Mayor Braxton’s election marks a turning point in New Bern’s history, restoring democratic governance, ensuring fair representation, and reaffirming that every resident has a voice in their local government,” Madison Hollon, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, said Thursday. The group endorsed Braxton in the race.
The mayor said his landslide victory would dispel any “doubts people have about me if they want me.”