The Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act, has triggered the largest rollback of Black political representation since the end of Reconstruction and the imposition of Jim Crow laws in the American South. Once bound by federal law to draw districts that do not result in discrimination against Black voters, Southern states are now free to eliminate Black-majority districts and replace them with white-majority ones. Three such seats have already been eliminated or are on a fast track to be removed in Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. White Republican governments in Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina are also moving forward with special legislative sessions to redraw maps.
According to a study by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter, white Republican majorities could eliminate upwards of 19 Black-majority seats across the South. This is only the beginning, as the Supreme Court's decision applies to all state offices elected through district maps, threatening Black and Latino representation in state legislatures, state judiciaries, city and county councils, and many other elected offices. This potential extinction-level event for Black political representation harkens back to some of the darkest days of the country's history.
Echoes of Reconstruction
Following the Civil War and the end of slavery, the Republican Congress led an ambitious campaign of Reconstruction to integrate the formerly enslaved into political society and create pluralistic governments in the South. Hundreds of Black men were elected to offices including governor, congressman, and senator after the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. However, this was short-lived as white Southerners organized a campaign of violent repression and terrorism known as Redemption to seize back control, while the Supreme Court carved the original intent out of the 14th and 15th Amendments and gutted civil rights laws passed by Congress.
These Redeemers imposed new laws and constitutions meant to ensure white rule by eliminating Black political representation and voting rights. This push culminated with the enactment of Jim Crow laws across the South as a response to suppress the successful fusion of Black voters with white Populists at the turn of the 20th century. What remained were authoritarian states imposing racial apartheid through legalism and violence.
The last Black congressman of this era, George H. White, gave his farewell speech in 1901 after North Carolina adopted Jim Crow laws effectively banning Black people from voting. He said, "This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress; but let me say, phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again." The former Confederate states would not send another Black congressman to Washington for another 72 years.
The Voting Rights Act and Its Dismantling
The Voting Rights Act, enacted in 1965 following the historic march from Selma to Montgomery led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., banned literacy tests and other discriminatory criteria for voter registration and created legal mechanisms to challenge discriminatory laws and district maps. However, even the original act had limitations. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in City of Mobile v. Bolden that plaintiffs challenging a district map as discriminatory must show evidence of racially discriminatory intent. In response, Congress passed a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 1982 that overruled the court by requiring plaintiffs to show that a given law or map resulted in discrimination, rather than being intentionally crafted to discriminate.
Challenges under Section 2 of the reauthorized Voting Rights Act led to increased Black political representation in Congress for the first time since Reconstruction. But the court's decision in Callais threatens this progress by reversing the 1982 reauthorization, stating that challenges must prove intentional racial discrimination. The decision also requires any challenge to yield to the partisan motives of state legislators, who can now claim they are eliminating Black-majority seats simply because they predominantly elect Democrats.
"Callais basically gave state governments the defibrillator to the heart of Jim Crow to be more bold and aggressive to eliminate Black districts and Black representation, and the Supreme Court says as long as you're doing it for partisan reasons, it's legal," said Davante Lewis, a Democrat serving on the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
Immediate Impacts Across the South
Tennessee's all-white government slammed through a new map within days of the Supreme Court's decision, wiping out the state's only Black-majority House seat centered on Memphis. In Louisiana, Republicans are on the verge of enacting a new map that would eliminate the Black-majority district centered on Baton Rouge, represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields, while preserving the New Orleans district held by Democratic Rep. Troy Carter. During a Louisiana Senate committee hearing, Leona Tate, who at age 6 was one of the first Black children to desegregate Louisiana public schools, testified: "I went through something no child should go through to desegregate our state. And now 65 years later, I'm watching as lawmakers attempt to go backwards and segregate us once again through disgraceful voting maps."
Alabama Republicans passed a trigger law that could revert the state to a congressional map with just one Black-majority House seat. "I never thought that me, at 52, where my grandfather and mother and her classmates were fighting for voting rights and acceptance and equal opportunity, that I would be fighting the same battles," said state Sen. Merika Coleman, a Democrat representing a Black-majority seat centered around Birmingham.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster called a special legislative session to eliminate the state's sole Black-majority seat held by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have called for special sessions to eliminate Black-majority districts for the 2028 elections, with Reeves also calling for redrawing state legislative and state supreme court maps.
Rhetoric Resembling Jim Crow
The justifications for these actions echo the rhetoric of the Jim Crow era. Reeves said about Mississippi's lone Black congressman, Bennie Thompson: "What I will tell you is the tenure of Congressman Bennie Thompson reigning terror on the Second Congressional District is over." Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall claimed that "the districts represented by Democratic congressmembers would probably be better off right now with some conservative voices being able to help their communities." In response, Coleman said, "To say that Black voters in Alabama would fare better if they were represented by Republicans, how dare he determine what is best for us."
Republicans have attempted to mask their actions with claims of partisan motivation, as the Supreme Court instructed, and calls for "conservative" supremacy. Tennessee Republican state Sen. John Stevens stated, "Tennessee is a conservative state. Its congressional delegation should reflect that." South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman contrasted conservatives with Black people, saying, "Jim Clyburn — I like him personally, but he does not represent the rest of South Carolina, which is conservative. His district is close to 47% African-American."
Broader Attacks on Civil Rights Progress
The Callais decision is not an isolated incident. Tennessee lawmakers have attacked Memphis by installing an all-white overseer board for the city's school boards and overriding bills establishing civilian review boards for police misconduct. Louisiana Republicans eliminated New Orleans' office of criminal clerk after an exonerated Black man won election. Attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory (CRT) have spurred laws banning or restricting the teaching of Black history across the South.
These efforts extend beyond the South, with President Donald Trump seeking to ban DEI via executive order, rescinding a Civil Rights-era executive order banning racially discriminatory hiring for government contractors, canceling grants and programs that help Black communities, and engaging in a purge of government workers that has disproportionately targeted Black women while replacing high-level Black military officials with white men.
Resistance and the Path Forward
Despite these setbacks, mass mobilizations are underway across the South, with large rallies planned in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. Organizers are planning voter registration drives and protests, while democratic reforms to the Supreme Court gain steam. "We are in a historical place right now whether you call it the next Civil Rights Movement or the next Reconstruction. We are in the midst of a pinnacle point in the history of this country, to say who are we? Are we the America that welcomes all people and feels as if all people should have a voice and have representation? Or are we a country that creates an atmosphere of us and them?" Coleman said.
