The town of Newbern saw white officials deny its first Black mayor, Patrick Braxton, from exercising his duties for three years

The town of Newbern saw white officials deny its first Black mayor, Patrick Braxton, from exercising his duties for three years

The town of Newbern, Alabama, has not had a political election in the last several decades. But that could all change this November if a new motion is successful.

The Legal Defense Fund (LDF), an organization that focuses on racial and civil rights, along with an Alabama-based private law firm, filed a preliminary injunction to force Newbern, a town of about 133 people, to hold elections and allow its citizens to vote for the first time in years.

The town, about an hour and a half away from Montgomery, captured national attention last summer, after white officials had refused for three years to allow Patrick Braxton, the first Black mayor in Newbern’s history, to exercise his mayoral duties.

Newbern is about 80% Black and 20% white, but the town’s leadership, with the exception of Braxton and his town council, has been majority white for years. The defendants in the lawsuit, including the previous mayor and council, have refused to hold elections.

  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
    7·
    8 months ago

    The FBI isn’t exactly a small group of people and there probably aren’t too many people there now that were around in the MLK days.

    If you’ve ever worked anywhere you’ll know there’s going to be good people in the workplace and also some really shit people. All companies, government institutions, educational institutions, political parties, and yes even non-profit organizations are like this. If you measure the value of an organization be the actions of the worst people in that organization through all history, then all organizations are horrible things, and you should just go live alone in a cabin in the woods because everything is terrible.