Political and Legal Scandal Rocking a Small Alabama Town: Who’s the Mayor?
A Black man was elected to lead the city. His white predecessor allegedly locked him out of the town hall.
By Arian Campo-Flores | Photographs by Wes Frazer for The Wall Street Journal
Aug. 11, 2023 9:00 am ET
NEWBERN, Ala.—For as long as Dexter Thornton can remember, white people served as mayor of this tiny majority-Black town and passed on the position without holding elections. Then a Black man, Patrick Braxton, ran unopposed for mayor in 2020 and after winning, named an all-Black town council.
The existing white mayor and majority-white council responded by seeking to oust him and retain their offices. Braxton said they locked him out of the town hall and blocked his access to the town’s bank account. Both camps now lay claim to Newbern’s government, leaving it unclear who is in charge.
“You just got people that have been in power, and they don’t want to relinquish that power,” said Thornton, who is 56 years old, Black and a longtime Newbern resident. “You hate to say it in 2023, but the division is along color lines.”
The conflict has convulsed the town, triggered a federal civil lawsuit by Braxton and his council members and raised prickly issues of race and political power. In recent months, the saga earned headlines after Braxton took his fight to court.
During a recent visit, Black residents approached by a reporter generally were open to discussing the issue, while white residents almost uniformly refused to let their names be published.
A members-only ‘community center’ in Newbern, Ala., that holds monthly dinners has mainly white attendees, according to residents.
“As long as you don’t rock the boat, there’s not much hostility,” said one white resident. “But this is rocking the boat, and I expect division.”
Located in Alabama’s Black Belt—a poor agricultural region in the southern part of the state that derives its name from the rich soil—Newbern has fewer than 300 residents, roughly 85% of them Black, according to census data. It has no stoplights, rusting relics of a cotton gin and train depot, and historic churches. A small central district is marked by a town hall, fire station, library and the Newbern Mercantile general store.
Braxton, a contractor and volunteer firefighter, said he decided to run for mayor in April 2020 out of concern that white leaders weren’t addressing the needs of Black citizens, including in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. But he stressed that he aimed to help all residents—such as working to add a gas station to the town, fixing roads and providing activities for the elderly.
“I’m trying to make the town better for everyone,” said Braxton, 57.
Braxton said it all began when he told Haywood Stokes III, who had been the incumbent mayor for years, of his plan to run to succeed him. Braxton filed his statement of candidacy with the city clerk in July 2020. No one else submitted such paperwork, and no election was held in August, when municipal contests are usually scheduled, both sides said.
Newbern, Ala., resident Dexter Thornton is one of the many supporters of Patrick Braxton.
Stokes and his council members either couldn’t be reached for comment or declined to comment, as did a lawyer representing them. In a response to Braxton’s lawsuit, the defendants argued that their actions to remain in office were lawful and justified.
More than a dozen Black and white residents said in interviews that they generally live together peacefully and treat each other with respect. But they mostly live in separate parts of town, attend separate churches and hold separate social gatherings. A members-only “community center” that holds monthly suppers has mainly white attendees, according to white and Black residents.
Newbern hasn’t held elections for mayor or town council for decades, residents said. (In fact, The Wall Street Journal couldn’t find a record of how long Stokes had been in office.) Each white mayor handed off the position to a successor, said Patricia Jackson, 57, a Black lifelong resident. “It’s just the way it was,” she said.
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Julian Walthall—son of the late Robert Walthall, who was mayor for 44 years until the 1990s—said that when his father took on the job, nobody was begging to do it. Over the years, the Walthalls, one of the longtime white families in Newbern, have had business interests in cotton, cattle and soybeans, and the elder Walthall tried to be fair to white and Black citizens, the son said.
Julian Walthall said he has a good relationship with both sides in the current dispute and wishes that he and others had stepped in earlier to try to resolve it. He thinks Braxton should be mayor as the only candidate who qualified, he said, and laments that the fight has escalated.
“I think race is a factor,” said Walthall, 76.
The First Baptist Church of Newbern, Ala., is one of the town's majority-Black congregations. The town has fewer than 300 residents, roughly 85% of them Black, and no stoplights.
Arthur Crawford, the Hale County probate judge and chief election official, said he informed Braxton shortly after the qualification period ended that he had won by default, becoming the first Black mayor of Newbern since the town’s founding in 1854. Braxton then named members of the town council, as has been tradition, and said although he approached Black and white residents about joining, only Black ones accepted.
In August 2020, Stokes and his council held a meeting in which they passed a resolution declaring that Braxton was elected mayor, according to minutes of the meeting, the location of which was unclear. But they also said they had “inadvertently and mistakenly failed to satisfy the requirements for a municipal election,” without specifying what those requirements were, the minutes said, and voted to set a new election date in October for the town council seats.
No notice of that election was ever published, and residents weren’t made aware of it, according to Braxton’s legal team. Stokes and his council members filed statements of candidacy for the new election and, as the only ones who did so, claimed victory.
In addition to being elected mayor, Patrick Braxton is also a Newbern, Ala., volunteer firefighter.
On Nov. 2, Braxton and his council members were sworn in by the presiding circuit judge, according to oaths of office filed with Crawford’s office. About 10 days later, Stokes and his council allies filed their own oaths of office with the probate judge. Crawford declined to comment on why his office accepted the subsequent set of oaths.
Later that November, Braxton and his council members said they held what would be their only meeting in the town hall. Afterward, they said, Stokes and his council members sought to block them from carrying out their duties—changing the locks at the town hall and denying them access to the town’s mail and finances (Braxton said he then changed the locks but that Stokes and his allies changed them again).
Underpinning the Stokes side’s claim to power is that they said they held several meetings from November 2020 to February 2021 that Braxton didn’t attend, according to a document from the Alabama attorney general’s office. They argued Braxton should be ousted under an Alabama law that calls for municipal officials who miss meetings for 90 consecutive days to be removed. They voted in March 2021 to name Stokes as mayor, according to the document.
The attorney general’s office, responding to the Stokes group’s request for an opinion, said it couldn’t make factual determinations—but that a mayor who fails to attend meetings for 90 days is removed from office under the law.
Patrick Braxton filled his oath of office for mayor of Newbern, Ala., at the Hale County courthouse in Greensboro, Ala.
Braxton said he had no idea the Stokes-led meetings were being held.
Last year, Braxton filed a civil lawsuit in state court against Stokes and his faction, as well as other parties, and earlier this year he and his council members filed an amended complaint in federal court. They claim violations of equal protection and accuse the defendants of racial discrimination.
“We’re trying to correct a wrong,” said James Ballard, 76, one of Braxton’s council members.
In their response to the lawsuit, the defendants denied that they made moves to prevent Braxton and his council members from performing their duties on account of their race.
The Alabama secretary of state’s office wouldn’t comment on pending litigation but takes allegations such as those in Newbern seriously, said Meridith Blackburn, the agency’s deputy general counsel.
Walthall, of the longtime white Newbern family, said he regrets that the dispute has turned into a legal battle. But, he said, “It looks like at this point that’s the only way it’s going to get resolved.”
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