Racism in the RED state of Alabama (bringing attention to a lack of justice)
Racism, dirty politics and Red State legal ways of doing business have, for years, caused discrimination in the south. That has gone back to the Jim Crow era, and it has been hoped that much of that abuse has been stopped.
However, Newton, Alabama is a prime example that we haven’t come as far as we might hope we had in terms of racism, and certainly not in terms of the boss Hog version of the corrupt political and police behavior that is applied in ways that discriminate and mislead the inhabitants of a local community.
Now Newton is a small town, I have seen articles saying anything from 133 to 300 in population.
Those numbers confuse me. It seems that as of 2020, the population was about 133, but now it is about 300. I am not sure what caused the sudden climb in population or if is even possible, but that is not the real story here.
The real story is that in 2020, Patrick Braxton was the only person that did the paperwork to qualify for running for mayor. Nobody else filled out paperwork to be either mayor or board member. Now bear in mind, this is a small, small town but the population is 92 percent Black or African American and only 7.1 percent White. With that demographic, it would be reasonable to assume that Mr Braxton might have had very very good chance of getting elected. However, apparently voter apathy is king in Newton because apparently nobody voted.
Mr Braxton, therefore, assumed that he was the Mayor, after all he was the only one on the ballot. However, apparently there was an “agreement” locally that elections were unnecessary and that the same people, all of whom were white, would just keep all the positions, both Mayor and Council member passing the positions off to other members of the same family or group of families with no need to even consider what the people of Newton might or might not want.
So, the Stokes family, who apparently had a history of occupting the Mayorial office called another special election, without telling everybody in town they were doing so. At the special election, again without votes from everything I can find, guess what, Stokes took back over.
Of course Stokes is claiming that there was nothing racial about it, but I beg to differ. Basically because MOST of the town is black so this absolutely stinks of a small town where a small white minority has assumed control, and has kept it for decades without ever once actually promoting or running a real election to see what the citizens want. That is the height of racial discrimination and is what the civil rights bill should have ended.
Apparently, the Black population has been given the impression that they have no voice, or maybe many of them simply don’t care but whatever the situation this town needs to be brought into the 21st century and legally required to conduct honest elections with disclosure if they want to keep their charter as a town.
Of course, likely the term that Braxton was to fill is over….in essence he was “locked out” and never did his job, but I suspect he would have done better for the rank and file than did the white minority who are so determined to reserve all power for themselves.
This is still being litigated with the courts dragging their heels as one might expect.
