A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama, but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve
A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama, but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve
For three years, Patrick Braxton says he has experienced harassment and intimidation after becoming the first Black mayor in Newbern, Alabama.
For three years, Patrick Braxton says he has experienced harassment and intimidation after becoming the first Black mayor in Newbern, Alabama.
“When I first became mayor, [a white woman told me] the town was not ready for a Black mayor,” Braxton recalls.
The town is 85% Black
This would be comical if the following weren't so depressing.
Braxton, who was off duty at the time, overheard an emergency dispatch call for a Black woman experiencing a heart attack. He drove to the fire station to retrieve the automated external defibrillator, or AED machine, but the locks were changed, so he couldn’t get into the facility. He raced back to his house, grabbed his personal machine, and drove over to the house, but he didn’t make it in time to save her.
I have more respect for this one man than I have for 15% of that town.
Oh I spoke too soon! It gets worse!
For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town. Instead, the mantle has been treated as a “hand me down” by the small percentage of white residents...
I'll never need to explain what institutional racism is ever again. I just need to link this article.
"What did you expect? 'Welcome, sonny'? 'Make yourself at home'? 'Marry my daughter'? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the
new Westdeep South. You know . . . morons."I joke, but only because the situation is farcical and deeply frustrating and it's about all I can do from where I'm sat at the other side of the pond. Especially if the people that voted for this man, who presumably live much closer, can't do anything either.
This is so unbelievable depressing.
This poor man, doing literally everything he can to better this town, and the “ruling class” shuts him down at every turn. What the actual fuck Alabama?!
Very ignorant for sure.