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”

Well this seems like the problem right here lol. Can’t the federal government intervene and force the state to actually hold elections?

Also with that population split - 85% black people - how on earth does what has happened there make sense? How can a town that is overwhelmingly black be being controlled by a small handful of racist white people?