By: Aallyah Wright Patrick Braxton is over-whelmed with gratitude. He’s been juggling a year’s long legal battle to serve as the lawful mayor of his hometown, Newbern, Alabama. After years of harassment, his rural town enters a new chapter: Its first Black mayor will finally get to serve. Braxton will be re-instated as mayor of Newbern, according to a proposed settlement reached on June 21. Th e settlement awaits the signature of U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose. After 60 years of no elections, residents will get to exercise their right to vote. Th e town has also pledged to hold regular municipal elections beginning in 2025. In nearly a year since Capital B was among the first to report on Braxton’s fight, he has garnered support locally and nationally. On a recent morning in May, he traveled nearly three hours from his hometown to Mobile for a preliminary injunction hearing, asking the courts to demand the town hold regular elections in November. When he and his council members arrived, they were met by a busload of more than 30 residents who also traveled nearly three hours to showcase their support. In 2020, Braxton became the first Black mayor in Newbern and experienced harassment and intimidation for doing so. However, the previous majority-white town council blocked him from the post. He and his council filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against them in 2022 for conspiring to deny his civil rights and position because of his race, challenging the racially discriminatory voting and electoral practices in Newbern in the process, Capital B previously reported. For at least 60 years, there’s been no elections in this 80% Black town of fewer than 200 people, which Braxton’s attorneys argued is a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Th e Act provides an avenue to challenge states and jurisdictions using racially discriminatory voting policies.

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