The Supreme Court dealt a blow to a remaining key protection of the Voting Rights Act less than two weeks ago in Louisiana v. Callais. Lawmakers in states across the South heard this starting shot from the high court, jumped off the block and sprinted to redraw maps to undermine Black voters’ voices.
Alabama’s legislative majority wants different maps that would harm Black voters, and on Monday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that opened the door for the majority to do just that. Plaintiffs in the case — everyday Black Alabama voters and civic organizations affected by this court decision — immediately went back to the district court to ask them to keep the current map, given people are already voting under it.
Louisiana is trying to stop a primary election that’s already underway and is signaling it will eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority Black congressional districts. South Carolina has opened a process to extend its session to gerrymander its state voting maps. Mississippi lawmakers have signaled they will consider redrawing the state’s maps. And Tennessee just became the first state to adopt new maps after Callais.
This is a crisis for democracy, but the people are making their dissent heard, testifying and rallying at statehouses across the region. Voters in these states refuse to quietly accept these cynical attempts by lawmakers to choose their voters in order to unfairly retain power. The day after the decision, tens of thousands registered for a single organizing call with the “No Kings” coalition.
Hundreds showed up outside the Tennessee State Capitol to rally against the power grab, shouting “no” to the return of Jim Crow maps. In Louisiana, voters in Baton Rouge marched to the capitol to advocate for fair maps at committee hearings. The hearing room in South Carolina on Friday was overflowing with voters standing up for their rights and their communities’ voices. And right now, voters and groups are preparing for a national day of action this weekend, including large peaceful demonstrations in Montgomery and on the historical Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
In real time, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to undermine the voting rights of Black Americans in the South. But the people who forced the Voting Rights Act into reality did not do so by waiting for those in power to get on the right side of history.
This is a crisis for democracy, but the people are making their dissent heard – testifying and rallying at statehouses across the region.
Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and thousands of other movement leaders bled, marched and mobilized to pass the Voting Rights Act — the “crown jewel” of the Civil Rights Movement and the foundation of our multiracial democracy. With the Callais decision, however, the court has torn a big hole in that hard-won victory and the fabric of our democracy.
It has failed to do the one thing that the architects of this strategy wanted: It has not made voters disengage. People are flooding into their capitol buildings to stand up for our democracy and for the Black voters whose voices are integral to it. People are doing what the generation before them did: refusing to be silenced and disenfranchised.
They are showing up because they know it’s their right to choose their lawmakers, not the other way around. Gerrymandering, or the practice of election officials creating irrational voting districts to create outcomes that favor one party, is one of the most unpopular practices in American politics. Across every region, every demographic, every party, the vast majority of Americans believe voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around. In poll after poll, large majorities think states drawing legislative districts to favor one party is unfair and should be illegal.
The maps themselves are the tell. Tennessee’s new plan — drawn to eliminate the state’s lone Black-majority congressional district — slices up Memphis into three pieces and pairs Black Memphis voters with voters in Nashville suburbs more than 200 miles away.
That’s not redistricting. That’s voter suppression.
Our communities and country deserve better. We have been here before, and we know what to do, thanks to the courageous actions of previous generations of civil rights leaders. Our work may be harder and the path to success longer because of the Callais decision. But the work is already underway, and We the People will prevail.
So, to lawmakers in the South: Your voters are watching you. The country is watching you. History is already taking notes.
Molly McGrath is a voting rights attorney, advocate, and organizer. She is Director of National Campaigns in the ACLU's National Political Advocacy Department where she leads voting rights campaigns across the country.