A prominent civil rights law firm has joined a motion seeking immediate action against Newbern, Alabama, as part of a federal lawsuit filed in 2023 that claims white officials in the majority-Black town have unfairly stayed in power by manipulating the voting process.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2023 by Alabama-based Quinn, Connor, Weaver, Davis, & Rouco LLP, and later joined by the Legal Defense Fund with an updated complaint in September 2023, claims that white officials systematically hijacked the democratic process for many decades, allowing them to maintain complete control in the town where 80 percent of the residents are Black.
The town has a population of around 200 residents who are only 20 percent white, however, white people have always managed to hold the majority, if not all, of the seats on the town council.
The lawsuit, Braxton et al., v. Stokes et al., was filed on behalf of Newbern’s first Black Mayor and now lead plaintiff, Patrick Braxton, who took office nearly four years ago by default because he was the only one who filed to run for mayor.
His predecessor, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, who is named as a defendant in the legal action, along with his all-white handpicked town council, didn’t mount a challenge to Braxton at the time, breaking with long-held tradition.
But when Braxton won the vote, the white officials staged a fake special election to block the new mayor from appointing a mostly Black town council, and took other covert actions that prevented voters from choosing preferred council members.
Last week, Braxton requested a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit, urging the court to force the white officials to hold elections in November so that Black Newbern residents can exercise their constitutional right to vote before a final ruling is issued in the matter.
The injunction would immediately enable Black residents to vote in a general election for the first time in years, while preventing…
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