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odinsblog · 9 months

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Patrick Braxton became the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama, when he was elected in 2020, but since then he has fought with the previous administration to actually serve in office. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)

NEWBERN, Ala. — There’s a power struggle in Newbern, Alabama, and the rural town’s first Black mayor is at war with the previous administration who he says locked him out of Town Hall.

After years of racist harassment and intimidation, Patrick Braxton is fed up, and in a federal civil rights lawsuit he is accusing town officials of conspiring to deny his civil rights and his position because of his race.

“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, and 29% of Black people here live below the poverty line.

“What did she mean by the town wasn’t ready for a Black mayor? They, meaning white people?” Capital B asked.

“Yes. No change,” Braxton says.

Decades removed from a seemingly Jim Crow South, white people continue to thwart Black political progress by refusing to allow them to govern themselves or participate in the country’s democracy, several residents told Capital B. While litigation may take months or years to resolve, Braxton and community members are working to organize voter education, registration, and transportation ahead of the 2024 general election.

But the tension has been brewing for years.

Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.

In another incident, 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. Braxton wasn’t able to gain access to the building or equipment until the Hale County Emergency Management Agency director intervened, the lawsuit said.

“I have been on several house fires by myself,” Braxton says. “They hear the radio and wouldn’t come. I know they hear it because I called dispatch, and dispatch set the tone call three or four times for Newbern because we got a certain tone.”

This has become the new norm for Braxton ever since he became the first Black mayor of his hometown in 2020. For the past three years, he’s been fighting to serve and hold on to the title of mayor, first reported by Lee Hedgepeth, a freelance journalist based in Alabama.

Incorporated in 1854, Newbern, Alabama, today has a population of 275 people — 85% of whom are Black. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)

Not only has he been locked out of the town hall and fought fires alone, but he’s been followed by a drone and unable to retrieve the town’s mail and financial accounts, he says. Rather than concede, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, the former white mayor, along with his council members, reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about.

Braxton is suing them, the People’s Bank of Greensboro, and the postmaster at the U.S. Post Office.

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, according to several residents Capital B interviewed. After being the only one to submit qualifying paperwork and statement of economic interests, Braxton became the mayor.

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#politics #white supremacy #patrick braxton #woody stokes #republicans #alabama #sundown towns #racism #voter suppression

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soberscientistlife · 3 months

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On this day in 1960, four Black college students staged a sit-in at the segregated lunch counter of Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their quiet protest ignited a nationwide movement.

Source: African Archives

#black history month

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evan-collins90 · 1 year

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Four Seasons Town Centre - Greensboro, NC (Opened April 1987)

Scanned from the book, ‘Shopping Centers and Malls 2′ (1988) and the Dec. 1987 issue of Contract Interiors Magazine.

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reasoningdaily · 10 months

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NEWBERN, Ala. — There’s a power struggle in Newbern, Alabama, and the rural town’s first Black mayor is at war with the previous administration who he says locked him out of Town Hall.

“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, and 29% of Black people here live below the poverty line.

“What did she mean by the town wasn’t ready for a Black mayor? They, meaning white people?” Capital B asked.

“Yes. No change,” Braxton says.

But the tension has been brewing for years.

Braxton is suing them, the People’s Bank of Greensboro, and the postmaster at the U.S. Post Office.

Stokes and his council — which consists of three white people (Gary Broussard, Jesse Leverett, Willie Tucker) and one Black person (Voncille Brown Thomas) — deny any wrongdoing in their response to the amended complaint filed on April 17. They also claim qualified immunity, which protects state and local officials from individual liability from civil lawsuits.

The attorneys for all parties, including the previous town council, the bank, and Lynn Thiebe, the postmaster at the post office, did not respond to requests for comment.

The town where voting never was

Over the past 50 years, Newbern has held a majority Black population. The town was incorporated in 1854 and became known as a farm town. The Great Depression and the mechanization of the cotton industry contributed to Newbern’s economic and population decline, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Today, across Newbern’s 1.2 square miles sits the town hall and volunteer fire department constructed by Auburn’s students, an aging library, U.S. Post Office, and Mercantile, the only store there, which Black people seldom frequent because of high prices and a lack of variety of products, Braxton says.

“They want to know why Black [people] don’t shop with them. You don’t have nothin’ the Black [people] want or need,” he says. “No gasoline. … They used to sell country-time bacon and cheese and souse meat. They stopped selling that because they say they didn’t like how it feel on their hands when they cuttin’ the meat.”

To help unify the town, Braxton began hosting annual Halloween parties for the children, and game day for the senior citizens. But his efforts haven’t been enough to stop some people from moving for better jobs, industry, and quality of life.

Residents say the white town leaders have done little to help the predominantly Black area thrive over the years. They question how the town has spent its finances, as Black residents continue to struggle. Under the American Rescue Plan Act, Newbern received $30,000, according to an estimated funding sheet by Alabama Democratic U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, but residents say they can’t see where it has gone.

At the First Baptist Church of Newbern, Braxton, three of his selected council members — Janice Quarles, 72, Barbara Patrick, 78, and James Ballard, 76 — and the Rev. James Williams, 77, could only remember two former mayors: Robert Walthall, who served as mayor for 44 years, and Paul Owens, who served on the council for 33 years and mayor for 11.

“At one point, we didn’t even know who the mayor was,” Ballard recalls. “If you knew somebody and you was white, and your grandfather was in office when he died or got sick, he passed it on down to the grandson or son, and it’s been that way throughout the history of Newbern.”

Quarles agreed, adding: “It took me a while to know that Mr. Owens was the mayor. I just thought he was just a little man cleaning up on the side of the road, sometimes picking up paper. I didn’t know until I was told that ‘Well, he’s the mayor now.’”

Braxton mentioned he heard of a Black man named Mr. Hicks who previously sought office years ago.

“This was before my time, but I heard Mr. Hicks had won the mayor seat and they took it from him the next day [or] the next night,” Braxton said. “It was another Black guy, had won years ago, and they took it from.”

“I hadn’t heard that one,” Ballard chimes in, sitting a few seats away from Braxton.

“How does someone take the seat from him, if he won?” Capital B asked.

“The same way they’re trying to do now with Mayor Braxton,” Quarles chuckled. “Maybe at that time — I know if it was Mr. Hicks — he really had nobody else to stand up with him.”

Despite the rumor, what they did know for sure: There was never an election, and Stokes had been in office since 2008.

The costs to challenging the white power structure

After years of disinvestment, Braxton’s frustrations mounted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when he says Stokes refused to commemorate state holidays or hang up American flags. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the majority-white council failed to provide supplies such as disinfectant, masks, and humidifiers to residents to mitigate the risks of contracting the virus.

Instead of waiting, Braxton made several trips to neighboring Greensboro, about 10 miles away, to get food and other items to distribute to Black and white residents. He also placed signs around town about vaccination. He later found his signs had been destroyed and put in “a burn pile,” he said.

After years of unmet needs of the community, Braxton decided to qualify for mayor. Only one Black person — Brown Thomas, who served with Stokes —has ever been named to the council. After Braxton told Stokes, the acting mayor, his intention to run, the conspiracy began, the lawsuit states.

According to the lawsuit, Stokes gave Braxton the wrong information on how to qualify for mayor. Braxton then consulted with the Alabama Conference of Black Mayors, and the organization told him to file his statement of candidacy and statement of the economic interests with the circuit clerk of Hale County and online with the state, the lawsuit states. Vickie Moore, the organization’s executive director, said it also guided Braxton on how to prepare for his first meeting and other mayoral duties.

Moore, an Alabama native and former mayor of Slocomb, said she has never heard of other cases across the state where elected officials who have never been elected are able to serve. This case with Braxton is “racism,” she said.

“The true value of a person can’t be judged by the color of their skin, and that’s what’s happening in this case here, and it’s the worst racism I’ve ever seen,” Moore said. “We have fought so hard for simple rights. It’s one of the most discouraging but encouraging things because it encourages us to continue to move forward … and continue to fight.”

Political and legal experts say what’s happening in Newbern is rare, but the tactics to suppress Black power aren’t, especially across the South. From tampering with ballot boxes to restricting reading material, “the South has been resistant to all types of changes” said Emmitt Riley III, associate professor of political science and Africana Studies at The University of the South.

“This is a clear case of white [people] attempting to seize and maintain political power in the face of someone who went through the appropriate steps to qualify and to run for office and by default wins because no one else qualified,” Riley added. “This raises a number of questions about democracy and a free and fair system of governance.”

Riley mentioned a different, but similar case in rural Greenwood, Mississippi. Sheriel Perkins, a longtime City Council member, became the first Black female mayor in 2006, serving for only two years. She ran again in 2013 and lost by 206 votes to incumbent Carolyn McAdams, who is white. Perkins contested the results, alleging voter fraud. White people allegedly paid other white people to live in the city in order to participate in the election and cast a legal vote, Riley said. In that case, the state Supreme Court dismissed the case and “found Perkins presented no evidence” that anyone voted illegally in a precinct, but rather it was the election materials that ended up in the wrong precincts.

“It was also on record that one white woman got on the witness stand and said, ‘I came back to vote because I was contacted to vote by X person.’ I think you see these tactics happening all across the South in local elections, in particular,” Riley said. “It becomes really difficult for people to really litigate these cases because in many cases it goes before the state courts, and state courts have not been really welcoming to overturning elections and ordering new elections.”

Another example: Camilla, Georgia.

In 2015, Rufus Davis was elected as the first Black male mayor of rural, predominantly Black Camilla. In 2017, the six-person City Council — half Black and half white — voted to deny him a set of keys to City Hall, which includes his office. Davis claimed the white city manager, Bennett Adams, had been keeping him from carrying out his mayoral duties.

The next year, Davis, along with Black City Council member Venterra Pollard, boycotted the city’s meetings because of “discrimination within the city government,” he told a local news outlet. Some of the claims included the absence of Black officers in the police department, and the city’s segregated cemetery, where Black people cannot be buried next to white people. (The wire fence that divided the cemetery was taken down in 2018). In 2018, some citizens of the small town of about 5,000 people wanted to remove Davis from office and circulated a petition that garnered about 200 signatures. In 2019, he did not seek re-election for office.

“You’re not the mayor”

After being the only person to qualify and submit proper paperwork for any municipal office, Braxton became mayor-elect and the first Black mayor in Newbern’s history on July 22, 2020.

Following the announcement, Braxton appointed members to join his council, consistent with the practice of previous leadership. He asked both white and Black people to serve, he said, but the white people told him they didn’t want to get involved.

The next month, Stokes and the former council members, Broussard, Leverett, Brown Thomas, and Tucker, called a secret meeting to adopt an ordinance to conduct a special election on Oct. 6 because they “allegedly forgot to qualify as candidates,” according to the lawsuit, which also alleges the meeting was not publicized. The defendants deny this claim, but admit to filing statements of candidacy to be elected at the special election, according to their response to an amended complaint filed on their behalf.

Because Stokes and his council were the only ones to qualify for the Oct. 6 election, they reappointed themselves as the town council. On Nov. 2, 2020, Braxton and his council members were sworn into office and filed an oath of office with the county probate judge’s office. Ten days later, the city attorney’s office executed an oath of office for Stokes and his council.

After Braxton held his first town meeting in November, Stokes changed the locks to Town Hall to keep him and his council from accessing the building. For months, the two went back and forth on changing the locks until Braxton could no longer gain access. At some point, Braxton says he discovered all official town records had been removed or destroyed, except for a few boxes containing meeting minutes and other documents.

Braxton also was prevented from accessing the town’s financial records with the People’s Bank of Greensboro and the city clerk, and obtaining mail from the town’s post office. At every turn, he was met with a familiar answer: “You’re not the mayor.” Separately, he’s had drones following him to his home and mother’s home and had a white guy almost run him off the road, he says.

Braxton asserts he’s experienced these levels of harassment and intimidation to keep him from being the mayor, he said.

“Not having the Lord on your side, you woulda’ gave up,” he told Capital B.

‘Ready to fire away’

In the midst of the obstacles, Braxton kept pushing. He partnered with LaQuenna Lewis, founder of Love Is What Love Does, a Selma-based nonprofit focused on enriching the lives of disadvantaged people in Dallas, Perry, and Hale counties through such means as food distribution, youth programming, and help with utility bills. While meeting with Braxton, Lewis learned more about his case and became an investigator with her friend Leslie Sebastian, a former advocacy attorney based in California.

The three began reviewing thousands of documents from the few boxes Braxton found in Town Hall, reaching out to several lawyers and state lawmakers such as Sen. Bobby Singleton and organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. No one wanted to help.

When the white residents learned Lewis was helping Braxton, she, too, began receiving threats early last year. She received handwritten notes in the mail with swastikas and derogatory names such as the n-word and b-word. One of theletters had a drawing of her and Braxton being lynched.

Another letter said they had been watching her at the food distribution site and hoped she and Braxton died. They also made reference to her children, she said. Lewis provided photos of the letters, but Capital B will not publish them. In October, Lewis and her children found their house burned to the ground. The cause was undetermined, but she thinks it may have been connected.

Lewis, Sebastian, and Braxton continued to look for attorneys that would take the case. Braxton filed a complaint in Alabama’s circuit court last November, but his attorney at the time stopped answering his calls. In January, they found a new attorney, Richard Rouco, who filed an amended complaint in federal court.

“He went through a total of five attorneys prior to me meeting them last year, and they pretty much took his money. We ran into some big law firms who were supposed to help and they kind of misled him,” Lewis says.

Right now, the lawsuit is in the early stages, Rouco says, and the two central issues of the case center on whether the previous council with Stokes were elected as they claim and if they gave proper notice.

Braxton and his team say they are committed to still doing the work in light of the lawsuit. Despite the obstacles, Braxton is running for mayor again in 2025. Through AlabamaLove.org, the group is raising money to provide voter education and registration, and address food security and youth programming. Additionally, they all hope they can finally bring their vision of a new Newbern to life.

For Braxton, it’s bringing grocery and convenience stores to the town. Quarles wants an educational and recreational center for children. Williams, the First Baptist Church minister, wants to build partnerships to secure grants in hopes of getting internet and more stores.

“I believe we done put a spark to the rocket, and it’s going [to get ready] to fire away,” Williams says at his church. “This rocket ready to fire away, and it’s been hovering too long.”

Correction: In Newbern, Alabama, 29% of the Black population lives below the poverty line. An earlier version of this story misstated the percentage

#alabama #Newbern Alabama #A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama #but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve #Patrick Braxton #AlabamaLove.org #black lives matter

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workingclasshistory · 1 year

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Today in the US, Black history month begins, on the anniversary of civil rights sit-ins beginning in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 when four Black college students refused to move from a Woolworth lunch counter when they were denied service. While many sit-ins had taken place in years prior, none had previously sparked a mass direct action movement against Jim Crow segregation laws. On this day, 1 February 1960, Joseph McNeil, Jibreel Khazan, David Richmond and Franklin McCainand began their protest, and refused to leave Woolworth's when directed to by management. A police officer soon arrived, but didn't appear to know what to do other than look vaguely threatening. Eventually the manager decided to close the store, and then the men went home. McCain later told Christopher Wilson, a journalist with Smithsonian magazine, “Almost instantaneously, after sitting down on a simple, dumb stool, I felt so relieved. I felt so clean, and I felt as though I had gained a little bit of my manhood by that simple act”. The protesters then continued organising, importantly including young Black women at Bennett College, and came back the following day with up to 16 more people. Within a few days there were hundreds, including some white students from the Women's College of the University of North Carolina. The movement then spread around the country. By the following September over 70,000 people had participated in sit ins against segregation. The Greensboro Woolworth's desegregated on July 25, 1960, and overt segregation was eventually banned in 1964. * In our new Stories web app, you can browse all of the stories in our archive about Black history and see sources and links to more information, as well as map locations where available: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/tag/7662/black-history https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2199822513536220/?type=3

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mogai-sunflowers · 1 year

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MOGAI BHM- Day 3!

happy BHM! today i’m going to be talking about the greensboro four and how they inspired the sit in movement!

The Greensboro Four-

[Image ID: A black-and-white photo of the “Greensboro Four”- four Black male college students. From left to right, they are David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Jibreel Khazan and Joseph McNeil. Two are wearing their college gowns, the other two are wearing long white trench coats. They are walking side by side in a building. End ID.]

The “Greensboro Four”, as they have come to be called, is a group of four Black students who, at the time, attended the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, sparked one of the most well-known and effective movements of the Civil Rights Movement. Their names are Franklin McCain, Jibreel Khazan, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond- four Black friends who decided to challenge the segregation laws that still subjected Black Americans to the ‘separate but equal’ fallacy in public places.

On February 1, 1960, the four men staged a sit-in at the lunch counter of the popular store Woolworth’s- which didn’t allow Black people to sit there. Although they feared for their safety, they nonetheless went to Woolworth’s and sat at the lunch counter. After being repeatedly asked to leave, they refused, placed their lunch orders, and though the police were called on them, they remained in their places until the store closed, when they left.

Soon after, they got in contact with other Black friends from their university and nearby universities and asked them to join them in future sit ins. The Greensboro Four were soon joined by a growing mass of Black students who sat with them at Woolworth’s lunch counter. At this point, they were faced with threats and harassment, but nobody was physically harmed. Thus, the sit in movement was born.

The Sit-In Movement-

[Image ID: A black-and-white photograph of four Black men sitting at the counter of a lunch place. End ID.]

For months before the first Greensboro sit-in, students across North Carolina had been secretly meeting in houses, Church basements, and YMCA chapters to do underground work- they established phone networks, studied nonviolence and nonviolent protest tactics, and connected with each other to form underground networks of student activists. This dedication paid off after the first Greenboro sit-ins.

Black students spread the word about sit ins all across the South- college towns all across the US began to see a rise in Black students, occasionally accompanied by supportive white students, staging sit ins at segregated stores and restaurants. In the time directly following the Greensboro sit-ins, many stores were opened and closed and then opened again and de-segregated. This was all aided by the student-formed organization the Student Executive Committee for Justice along with Greensboro’s NAACP chapter. By the end of the month, over 30 towns across the US had been home to sit-ins staged by students.

These sit-ins were not spur-of-the-moment. They took months of planning, and each was only acquired through the dedication and work of every single student who participated. In Charlotte, NC, 200 students occupied all the downtown lunch bars. In Rock Hill, it was 300 students. They refused to back down and 4 months later, the Charlotte students saw success with all the downtown bars being desegregated.

Not even two weeks had passed since the first Greensboro sit in when, under the guise of the Nashville Christian Leadership conference, a partner organization under the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, students formed a wildly successful organization to coordinate sit-in efforts and encourage boycotts as well as other nonviolent methods of protest to oppose segregation.

On April 19, 1961, Alexander Looby, a Black lawyer who had been providing legal support to the students who participated in sit-ins, was targeted, and his house was destroyed by a bomber. In response to this, thousands of demonstrators marched to the steps of Nashville’s City Hall, where rising student activist Diane Nash directly confronted Nashville’s mayor, Ben West, forcing him to admit that segregation is wrong and that the lunch counters should be desegregated. After this, Nashville became the first Southern city to start the process of desegregating all of its public facilities.

Despite being arrested, beaten, and threatened, the students did not quit. They were unfairly arrested, beaten, threatened with unfair jail terms and fines, and through all of it, they did not give up. Sit ins raged across the South for years to come. The Freedom Movement grew rapidly out of the Sit-In Movement, and in 1964, the sit-in movement was a major inspiration for the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which officially illegalized segregation in all public facilities.

Sources-

https://files.nc.gov/dncr-moh/The%20Greensboro%20Four.pdf

https://www.crmvet.org/info/sitins.pdf

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/educate/lunch.html

#mogai bhm #mogai #mogai community #bhm #black history month #blm #black lives matter

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posttexasstressdisorder · 9 months

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That "Spaywall" link above should get you the article, but if it doesn't, here it is:

GREENSBORO, N.C. — An avowed white nationalist who openly supports Russia is a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, recently served in the North Carolina Army National Guard and worked for a local sheriff’s office as a detention officer, according to a Raw Story investigation.

Christopher Woodall, 34, of Winston-Salem, N.C., has a long history of activism in the white power movement that coincided with his service in the U.S. military and government work.

In an interview this week with Raw Story, Woodall acknowledged that he is the author of texts that promote a “white nationalist training group," and added: “I don’t see it as an issue to have a white-friendly group of people that get together and teach each other.”

Woodall’s extremist resume, by his own account, includes involvement with the Ku Klux Klan and National Socialist Movement, the latter being a violent neo-Nazi group whose membership peaked in the mid-2000s. In 2021, Woodall indicated in text messages that he was an active member of a chapter of the chapter of American Guard — a group aligned with the Proud Boys but with more pronounced white nationalist leanings — for the western half of North Carolina. And recently, he organized what he described to online acquaintances as a “white nationalist training group.”

While enlisted in the North Carolina Army National Guard and continuing as a member of the Army Reserve, Woodall made statements in support of Russian military activity in Ukraine — siding with a country that President Joe Biden has said “poses an immediate and persistent threat to international peace and stability.” The United States is committing to billions of dollars in aid to support Ukraine in its war with Russia.

As a member of the North Carolina Army National Guard until this past April, Woodall actively trained with a unit that was on call to respond to orders from the governor to assist during hurricanes or quell riots — “to protect life and property and to preserve peace, order and public safety,” as the state Department of Public Safety explains it.

When Woodall separated from the North Carolina Army National Guard on April 18 following completion of a four-year contract, he went into the U.S. Army Reserve Control Group, also known as the “inactive ready reserve,” spokesperson Patrick Montandon said.

Montandon told Raw Story that Woodall’s status doesn’t require him to “come in for drills” and “he’s no longer assigned to a specific unit,” but is “on call if there was ever a need for additional service members to be called in for unique circumstances.”

Reached by Raw Story, Woodall disputed the National Guard’s claim that he remains a member of the reserve.

Informed of Woodall’s white supremacist activity, Montandon told Raw Story: “I will take that into account and speak with those that need to know that information.” He added, “I can’t speak on behalf of what action would be taken or not taken.”

Asked for the North Carolina National Guard’s position on white supremacist or extremist activity by its members, Montandon later provided a written statement citing a guidance from the U.S. Department of Defense that “expressly prohibits military personnel from actively advocating supremacist, extremist, or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes or actively participating in such organizations.”

Guarding jail inmates

Woodall was also recently employed by the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office as a detention officer at the Greensboro jail.

He was hired in September 2020 and voluntarily resigned in February 2022, according to a response from the agency to a public records request by Raw Story.

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers said in a prepared statement on Wednesday that Raw Story’s reporting “was the first notice the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office had received of these allegations.” Because the sheriff’s office could not independently confirm Woodall’s reported activities, Rogers declined to comment further about Woodall, but added: “The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is, however, a racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse organization and condemns any type of discrimination based on those factors.”

Woodall told Raw Story he voluntarily left the sheriff’s office because he didn’t appreciate how he “was treated by leadership” and because the job was stressful. The sheriff’s office said in response to the public records request that “Mr. Woodall did not have any disciplinary actions resulting in dismissal.”

Woodall was previously suspended from the sheriff’s office for seven days in September 2021 for discipline, according to the agency He told Raw Story that the discipline resulted from him getting into a fistfight outside of work during a road-rage incident, adding that the other individual struck him first. Woodall was charged with “misdemeanor simple affray.”

Woodall told Raw Story that the other man didn’t show up in court, and court records reviewed by Raw Story show that the district attorney dismissed the charge.

‘We are a brotherhood and a war band’

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the formation of a working group to root out extremism from the U.S. military.

But a recent investigation by USA Today found that more than two years later few of its recommendations have been implemented, including one that would require recruiters to screen applicants by asking about past membership in extremist groups or participation in violent acts. An audit released last week by the Inspector General for the Defense Department echoes USA Today’s reporting, including a finding that only four out of 10 recruits in a sample were asked about or responded to questions about extremist or criminal gang affiliation.

Extremist activity in the military and among veterans, which received significant scrutiny after Jan. 6, is a politically fraught topic, even researchers have reached different conclusions.

A recent report by the RAND Corporation found that support for extremist elements such as the Proud Boys, QAnon and political violence, in general, were lower among veterans than the general population, but a report by the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism found that affiliation with the U.S. military is the “single strongest” predictor of violent extremism in America.

Woodall, for his part, is a frequent user of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, which is a popular among right-wing extremists, and he administered a channel that was originally set up in September 2021 for “patched” members of the North Carolina American Guard Western Division chapter.

As former officers of the chapter became inactive, Woodall repurposed the channel as a platform to recruit for his white nationalist paramilitary training group. Raw Story reviewed dozens of text and audio chats by Woodall as he interacted with about eight different users.

Members of the chat made little effort to downplay race as an organizing principle.

On Telegram, Woodall invited “like-minded folk” to attend paramilitary-style trainings to learn about firearms, tactical gear and survivalism. The only eligibility requirement, he said, was “dedication to learning and being part of a brotherhood and a tribe here in NC that will look out for one another if SHTF.” (The acronym stands for “s--- hits the fan.”)

Christopher Woodall, posting under the screen name "Berserker," invites white nationalists to a join a paramilitary training group in central North Carolina in January 2023.Telegram screengrab

Reached by phone, Woodall did not deny that he made the posts to the Telegram chat about recruiting for the training group. Asked by Raw Story about the purpose of the trainings, Woodall said preparation for “SHTF” was “a generalization for a societal collapse.”

One member of the chat, who went on participate in Woodall’s training camp, celebrated Robert Jay Mathews — founder of the violent white power group the Order, who was killed during a shootout with the FBI in Washington state in 1984 — as an inspiration for “future leadership to rise to the occasion and other men to follow in their footsteps.”

Woodall himself ran a TikTok channel whose bio included the acronym “WPWW,” which stands for “white pride world wide,” and made a post with the inscription “RaHoWa,” short for “racial holy war.”

Woodall told Raw Story his use of the phrase was “satire.”

A video of one of Woodall’s trainings that was initially shared on his TikTok account, shows Woodall and three other men who are dressed in tactical gear advancing in formation and firing assault rifles. In mid-March, Woodall reshared the video, which is set to an electronic dance music and heavy metal soundtrack, on Telegram. “Here’s a video from our last session. If anyone is foggy on the nature of our activities,” he wrote at the time.

Woodall had mentioned in the chat in late January that the group had property in Reidsville, N.C. — a small city north of Greensboro — suggesting the training recorded in the video took place at that location.

There was no age restriction for the white nationalist training group. One Telegram user in Durham told Woodall that he would have trouble getting transportation to the trainings “partially because I’m young and live with my parents,” adding that he could probably make it in the summer.

Woodall replied, “Just let me know and we’ll get you plugged in with the crew.”

To another user who asked whether teenagers could attend, Woodall replied: “All family is allowed. Young and old.”

Woodall and the other participants felt comfortable talking about firearms training and various strains of white nationalist ideology under the apparent belief that the channel was closed. It was not. “This is a private chat,” Woodall wrote in March. “No worries.” He went on to share his qualifications: “I have 8 years experience in the Army (combat arms), and Law Enforcement. A further 2 years of private out of pocket training with various groups and instructors in CQB [close-quarters combat], Contractor courses, and defense scenarios.” Despite Woodall’s assurance, the chat was, in fact, not private. The chat was discovered by anonymous antifascist researchers in North Carolina, who then determined Woodall’s identity. Raw Story independently confirmed Woodall’s identity by comparing his various social media accounts, and when asked, Woodall did not dispute that he was the author of the Telegram posts.

Message posted by Christopher Woodall in a Telegram channel in March 2023Telegram screengrab

From January through March 2023, Woodall repeatedly solicited Telegram users to join his “white nationalist training group,” often addressing users individually. The solicitations almost invariably included the phrases “training group,” “firearms,” “brotherhood” or “tribe” �� or, in one instance, “war band,” — and “SHTF.”

When Woodall first issued an invitation to join the trainings, he announced that they would take place once a month. But by March, he said he hoped to increase to twice a month as the group grew. On occasion, when access to a firing range wasn’t required, he said, they would convene at a “clubhouse” on his property in Winston-Salem, N.C., for a “home station meet.” Eventually, he said, he planned to start collecting dues.

In late March, Woodall put out a notice for a training to be conducted on private property outside of Salisbury, N.C., roughly midway between Greensboro and Charlotte, for the second Saturday in April. The agenda, according to Woodall’s message, included “firearms fundamentals/live fire”; “team movement/CQB” — an acronym for “close quarters battle”; and “SALUTE/LACE reports,” two acronyms that respectively address assessments of opposing forces while on patrol and the capacity of one’s own force.

Then, six days before the training, Woodall abruptly announced: “Sorry guys, but I’ve officially killed the group. Sudden, I know, but I’m tired of people being fair weather warriors if that makes sense. No more training, at least not by me. We are still open to meeting everyone here and at least becoming Tribe together.”

Despite disavowing “groups” following the cancellation of the April 8 training, Woodall still aspired to gather like-minded white nationalists together in central North Carolina.

When a new member joined the chat in early June, Woodall explained, “I’ve always wanted to get everyone together for a meet and greet, but it doesn’t seem like anybody wants to take the time or effort to do so really. I’ve kept the chat open just in case, but if you’d like to try to get something together, feel free to reach out.” To the same user, Woodall expounded, “Groups really aren’t the way to go anymore IMO. I’ve done everything from running a state for the KKK to larping [live-action role play] for the NSM. I’ve been in too many political groups to name, brother. They all end up the same. All talk, lots of drugs usually, lots of useless hot air. It’s the biggest reason that I preach tribalism these days. My buddies’ families and mine are bound and we’ll have each other’s backs if SHTF.” (Woodall’s past involvement with the Ku Klux Klan is by his own account and could not be independently verified by Raw Story.) He added: “But since there’s been some renewed activity here, I’m going to try to orchestrate maybe a cookout at a park somewhere next month and invite everyone.”

Stephen Piggott, a researcher and program analyst at the Western States Center who focuses on white nationalist, paramilitary and anti-democracy groups, told Raw Story it’s always concerning when white nationalists move from online networking to in-person mobilizations.

“When you add firearms and routine training with firearms to the equation, the potential for violence increases dramatically,” Piggott said in an email to Raw Story. “These guys are not going to the range to practice target shooting, they are actively preparing for conflict.” In one of the Telegram messages, Woodall wrote that “similar ideology and the importance of communicating with people that believe the same things as we do” were important principles for the trainings, and he acknowledged to Raw Story that the trainings were “for white people.”

But he repeatedly insisted the trainings were not violent or insurrectionary.

“I don’t espouse violence against anyone for any reason unless it’s self-defense,” he told Raw Story. He also said, “I don’t espouse overthrowing any government.” And: “I don’t espouse a white takeover of any country.”

Piggott told Raw Story that Woodall’s statements should be treated with skepticism.

“We can’t see into this man’s heart, but there’s little to indicate that his activities are doing anything other than preparing for violence,” Piggott said. “His social media postings of ‘no political solution’ and ‘ra-ho-wa,’ short for ‘racial holy war,’ are indicators that he ascribes to the view that for white nationalists to succeed requires a violent overthrow of the current system.”

Pro-Russian content on TikTok

While the Telegram chats focused on firearms training and food-related topics like canning and raw milk, Woodall explored a different topic in his TikTok channel: Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. One video shared on Woodall’s account promotes the view that Russia is winning the war — an assessment most U.S.-based national security analysts reject.

He also commented favorably about Russian forces fighting a battle while outnumbered on a pro-Russia TikTok account that highlights Russian military successes.

The pro-Russia TikTok account had previously complimented Woodall for a weight-lifting video he posted, writing, “Holy s— you are strong.”

“I’m trying, brother,” Woodall replied, adding a smiling face emoji. “I do have pro-Russia standpoints,” Woodall told Raw Story. RELATED ARTICLE: Jericho March extremists illustrate threat of present-day MAGA violence

While Woodall disputed the assertion by the National Guard that he’s still enlisted in the reserve forces, he said he doesn’t think his pro-Russia views would pose a conflict with military service, even considering the United States’ adversarial relationship with Russia and military support for Ukraine.

“It is not, because everyone is entitled to their opinion on any subject matter that they deem to be in their wheelhouse of understanding,” Woodall told Raw Story. “Even if I were still enlisted, it wouldn’t have any bearing on my serving. I’m not providing financial support to any side of the conflict. Having an opinion on who is right in the conflict is a First Amendment matter.”

Woodall’s support for Russia compounds the concerns surrounding his white nationalist activity, Piggott said.

“Right now, the military is under increased scrutiny for allowing white nationalists into its ranks because they pose a significant danger to American communities and American defense,” he said.

Heather Hagan, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army, referred questions about Woodall to the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va. The bureau, in turn, referred questions about Woodall to the North Carolina National Guard.

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dilf-in-peril · 1 year

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Here are some of the interesting things from the Dax podcast that were not about the backstage drama:

Dax loved the Punk/Hardy feud

By Dax’s estimate 9 out of 10 matches are rehearsed in the back

FTR called the matches against Punk/Sting/Darby and Punk/Mox in the ring*

Dax was proud that Sting and Punk trusted FTR to call the match and “take care of them”

Punk pitched the Punk/Sting/Darby vs FTR/Max match, because they were in the Greensboro Coliseum, where Sting wrestled Ric Flair on the first-ever Clash of the Champions (possibly also to make his dream of teaming with Sting come true)

It hadn’t been decided until the night of the match whether Punk would be teaming with Moxley or Bryan Danielson

Dax thinks FTR vs MoxPunk was great because it was four unselfish guys trying to outsell each other

Moxley doesn’t say much backstage and hardly ever puts anyone over but he praised that match a lot

Punk got all of them including Aubrey together for a post match picture because he loved the match so much. In the photo Dax is sitting on the doctor’s table because he thought he’d busted a ball during the match

Dax loved working with Mox and politicked hard to get to work with him again by the end of 2022 (but circumstances... got in the way)

Punk wasn’t supposed to wrestle as much as he did, he had a limited number of matches planned, but he just really wanted to wrestle more

At the end of 2021 Dax had a bit of a falling out with Max (MJF) but they made up

Dax and Bobby Fish got into a shoot fight live on stage on Dynamite but they made up

Regarding Fish kicking out of the GTS, Dax thinks giving someone an iggy during the pin is a “thank you for the match” and not a sign to kick out at three (no further comments from him)

Dax vs Punk was decided on the same day when they ran into each other at Starbucks and Punk asked Dax if he was doing anything tonight and then got the match booked

Dax wanted to tap out to the Anaconda Vise because he loves the drama of tapping out. Dax also thinks people who believe faces should never tap out have never been in a real fight**

Dax and Punk were backstage at a Dark show once, and gave advice to everyone who asked (Dax is proud that more people asked him but he admits it might be because some were intimidated by Punk)

Bret Hart texted Dax about the matches Dax had with Claudio Castagnoli and Bryan Danielson, saying that he loved them - and telling him how he thought they could have been improved

Dax thinks it doesn’t matter who wins or loses except when you keep on losing on TV fans stop believing in you

FTR turned babyface because people respected them too much to boo them and they were stuck in a situation where they got no reaction

* typically, the heel calls the match, or the more experienced wrestler

** I think it’s Vince McMahon who had strong opinions about faces never tapping out because the hero shall never give up

#wow this got long now you might as well watch it #dax harwood #cm punk #jon moxley #ftr #wrestling

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jackoshadows · 10 months

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A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama, but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve

"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, and 69% of Black people here live below the poverty line. "What did she mean by the town wasn't ready for a Black mayor? They, meaning white people?" Capital B asked. "Yes. No change," Braxton says.

Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person's home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it. In another incident, 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. Braxton wasn't able to gain access to the building or equipment until the Hale County Emergency Management Agency director intervened, the lawsuit said. "I have been on several house fires by myself," Braxton says. "They hear the radio and wouldn't come. I know they hear it because I called dispatch, and dispatch set the tone call three or four times for Newbern because we got a certain tone."

Not only has he been locked out of the town hall and fought fires alone, but he's been followed by a drone and unable to retrieve the town's mail and financial accounts, he says. Rather than concede, Haywood "Woody" Stokes III, the former white mayor, along with his council members, reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about. Braxton is suing them, the People's Bank of Greensboro, and the postmaster at the U.S. Post Office. 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, according to several residents Capital B interviewed. After being the only one to submit qualifying paperwork and statement of economic interests, Braxton became the mayor.

#Racism #Alabama #Patrick Braxton #Can't believe this is happening in 2023 #Disgusting shit #Sounds like a Sundown town #How is this legal?

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filosofablogger · 1 year

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Black History Month -- Clara Luper

There are so many stories of people who were heroes in their own way throughout the civil rights movement and beyond that I could write a story a day for the entire year and not run out. Today’s efforts by some to whitewash history, to remove some of the most significant names from the history books is appalling. I cannot do much, but throughout February, as often as I can I plan to highlight…

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#Civil Rights movement #Clara Luper #Greensboro Four #Jon S. Randall Peace Page #NAACP #segregation #sit-ins

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whenweallvote · 1 year

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On February 1, 1960, four North Carolina A&T State University students — Ezell Blair, Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond — walked to downtown Greensboro and “sat-in” at the whites–only lunch counter at F.W. Woolworth, a segregated retail store. When they were inevitably refused service, they sat peacefully in place until the store closed.

Their actions that day sparked a sit-in movement that eventually spread to 55 cities in 13 states, desegregating lunch counters one-by-one across the nation and galvanizing a student movement.

𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

#BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #blackhistoryisamericanhistory

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odinsblog · 1 month

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Donald Trump took the stage in Greensboro, N.C. last Saturday calling for rounding up millions of Latinos across America and putting them in mass detention camps as part of “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Unfortunately, this kind of rhetoric has become so common among the MAGA Republican playlist that it’s tempting to see it as a joke. But that wasn’t just somebody’s racist grandfather running off at the mouth or a standup comedian with bad taste playing to the crowd. My parents and grandparents would have called it a dog whistle, but my generation should know it’s a bullhorn. But whatever you call it, it was calculated, drafted, tested and approved as part of the far-right Project 2025 plan to turn back the clock on civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights and democracy itself. It was the white Christian nationalist agenda on full public display in all its un-American glory and we can’t afford to take it lightly.

Now, if you haven’t heard about Project 2025, don’t feel bad. Most people haven’t. Founded in 2022 by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, it’s an organization led by Trump insiders preparing for one nation under Trump if the twice impeached and four times indicted former president wins the November election and to call them dangerous is an understatement.

What do you think about overhauling federal law enforcement so that the Department of Justice and the FBI, designed to be independent and insulated from political influence, were controlled directly by a newly elected and emboldened President Trump so he could protect his minions from investigation, arrest and prosecution no matter how many laws they broke? Project 2025 loves the idea.

Want to bypass the Senate confirmation process and stop notifying Congress when we sell weapons to foreign governments? Project 2025 does. What about terminating every diversity, equity and inclusion program in the federal government? Project 2025 says right on. What do you think about invoking martial law, using the military as local law enforcement and locking up Trump opponents? Project 2025 calls that progress.

But how do they plan on doing all this? After all, the federal government is more than just one person in the Oval Office. Trump already learned that lesson when federal employees and even some of his own appointees refused to break the law just because he said so.

But Project 2025 has a solution to that roadblock. They call it Schedule F and it’s a plan to fire as many as 50,000 federal employees and replace them with dyed-in-the-wool MAGA fanatics who swear their loyalty not to America or the Constitution but to Donald J. Trump. They’re not even trying to keep it a secret. But why would they?

You see, Project 2025 isn’t confused about who they are. They’re the MAGA Manifesto committed to the unapologetic vision of right-wing nationalism and they don’t care who knows it. Let’s be honest, these guys are attacking President Biden for pushing “racial equity in every area of our national life, including in employment.” Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Are we supposed to think our president should not be fighting for equality and justice?

That’s what Project 2025 says. But that shouldn’t surprise us. After all, they don’t think folks who look like me are real Americans. Neither does Trump.

But they’re not clowns. They’re highly trained, well-funded political operatives dedicated to winning in November and remaking America in their white nationalist image. They’ve spent the past two years putting together a plan to do just that setting the highest stakes imaginable for this election.

(continue reading)

#politics #donald trump #republicans #fair housing act #project 2025 #schedule f #white supremacy #christian nationalism #heritage foundation #a second trump administration will be very very bad #maga manifesto

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