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Newbern, Alabama is a small town. At it's heyday in the 1880s the population was 562. Today just about 150 people live there, with the population falling by 20% per decade for the past two decades.

It's a tiny town but there are residents who care about its future. One is Patrick Braxton, who started to question how the town was being run when working as a volunteer firefighter and during the early days of COVID.

The official leadership seemed unresponsive and even hostile.
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