Nearly four years after Patrick Braxton won the mayoral election for the small town of Newbern, Ala., in November 2020, he could soon get to serve his first term.
Mr. Braxton said in a lawsuit that, after he won the election, he never received access to manage the town’s finances, was barred from opening the municipal mailbox and was even locked out of the town hall, after the locks had been changed twice in six months.
Finally, on Friday, Newbern and Mr. Braxton filed a settlement agreement that, if approved by Judge Kristi K. DuBose of the Southern District of Alabama, will allow Mr. Braxton to begin his first term — three and a half years after it started.
“Every time I turned a corner, there was another obstacle in my way,” Mr. Braxton, a handyman who has long worked as a community volunteer, said in an interview.
A town of about 130 people, Newbern had not held an election for mayor since 1965 and instead allowed mayors to pick their successors. The town, where a majority of residents are Black, had never had a Black mayor. That more than five decade long streak without an election ended when Mr. Braxton filed the paperwork to run for mayor in the town’s 2020 election and, since he was the only person to do so, became the first Black mayor in Newbern’s history.
But over the next three years, the town’s incumbent leaders tried to bar Mr. Braxton from serving in the role, according to the lawsuit, in which he accused town leaders of racial discrimination. The lawsuit names the former mayor, Haywood Stokes III. Last week, the town and Mr. Braxton agreed on a settlement that would instate Mr. Braxton as the town’s rightful mayor, ensure the town holds regular elections, and require the town to admit to violating a series of laws, including the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act.