JACKSON, Miss. (AP) 鈥� At 16, Edward Blackmon Jr. was arrested during a protest for voting rights in his Mississippi hometown. He was loaded with schoolmates into a truck once used to haul chickens and was left in the summer heat before spending three nights in an overcrowded jail cell without a bed.
It was a moment that set him on a path to become a civil rights lawyer and one of the first Black lawmakers elected in the state since .
Blackmon was part of a generation of Black Americans across the South who fought in courtrooms and in the streets to dismantle and achieve political representation in a region scarred by the legacy of .
One of the crown jewels of that struggle, the , was hollowed out this week by the . The said states should not rely on racial demographics when drawing congressional districts, a ruling that opened the door to transforming how and making it .
The described racism as a problem of the past. Others saw the decision as another example of its resurgence 鈥� 鈥渁 defibrillator to the heart of Jim Crow,” as one Louisiana politician put it.
Blackmon’s son, Bradford, a 37-year-old state senator in Mississippi, said how the political lines are drawn “shapes who has a real chance before anyone ever votes.鈥�
“It鈥檚 just sad that we made progress and then they are always trying to roll it back when it shows that minorities are making more progress than I would guess that those in charge think that they鈥檙e allowed to make,” he said.
The elder Blackmon, now 78, said he was resigned to the reality that the fight of his youth is not over.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just another cycle 鈥� an ongoing struggle without a foreseeable ending,鈥� he said.
A legacy at risk
The case, involving a challenge to , clarified how the Voting Rights Act can be used to contest district lines that may weaken the voting power of Black residents.
For many Black Americans, the decision was a death knell for a cherished pillar of the . Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black voters in the Deep South had no guarantee of equal access to the ballot. Within a year of its passage, more than 250,000 Black Americans had gained the right to vote. By 2024, nearly 22 million Black voters were registered nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The United States is now witnessing the unraveling of nearly a century of organizing, civil disobedience and personal sacrifice by ordinary people who helped build Black political power to heights unseen since Reconstruction. Veterans of the voting rights movement 鈥� people who bled with on the 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, that became known as or marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 鈥� are seeing those hard-won victories stripped away from their descendants.
鈥淚鈥檓 the first generation of Americans born with equal rights,鈥� said Jonathan Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Illinois who is the 60-year-old son of the , the late civil rights leader. Jonathan Jackson said the idea that his children could grow up with fewer protections was 鈥渟urreal and devastating.鈥�
For Charles Mauldin, who was beaten by law enforcement as a teenager on Bloody Sunday, the ruling reflects a skirmish that was never as settled as some hoped.
鈥淚鈥檓 disappointed but not surprised,鈥� said Mauldin, 78, of Birmingham, Alabama. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e been chipping away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act for the last 60 years.鈥�
Who holds power now
In Louisiana, younger Black politicians say the high court’s ruling could reshape not just who wins elections, but whether candidates can compete at all, particularly in down-ballot races that often serve as steppingstones to higher office.
Davante Lewis, a 34-year-old Democrat who serves on the state鈥檚 utility regulatory board, said he expects districts could be redrawn in ways that make it harder for candidates like him to win.
鈥淭hey can target my communities 鈥� to ensure that I can鈥檛 get to an elected office,鈥� said Lewis, who one of several plaintiffs in the original Louisiana gerrymandering case that went to the Supreme Court.
Jamie Davis, a Black farmer in northeast Louisiana and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said the decision risks discouraging voters already skeptical that their voices matter.
鈥淚 want to be optimistic, but how can you be optimistic when voter turnout in the past election cycles has been really low,鈥� Davis said.
Tennessee is among the states bracing for new redistricting efforts. , who represents Memphis and is running for Congress, said people who struggled to pass the Voting Rights Act are 鈥渟hocked and devastated that they鈥檙e having to relitigate the same fights that they fought 60 years ago.鈥�
But he also predicted that efforts to reduce Black representation could 鈥渞einvigorate a civil rights movement in the South that demands equal representation, that demands fairness, that demands justice and equality.鈥�
Supporters of the Supreme Court ruling said it reinforces a race-neutral approach to redistricting and they say political lines should not be drawn primarily based on race.
Mississippi state Rep. Bryant Clark said that view ignores how race and party align in the state. In Mississippi, where most Black voters are Democrats and most white voters are Republicans, he said the two are often indistinguishable.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just a roundabout way to basically legalize racially discriminatory redistricting in the state,鈥� Clark said.
In 1967, his father, became the first Black lawmaker elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction.
With Black residents making up about 38% of Mississippi鈥檚 population, Edward Blackmon Jr. said the current maps allow Black voters to elect candidates in some districts while keeping Republican majorities intact across much of the state.
He said lawmakers have little incentive to change that balance because moving Black voters into more districts would make those seats less reliably conservative and force candidates to compete for a broader electorate.
鈥淲here do you think the population goes? They don鈥檛 just disappear,鈥� Blackmon said. 鈥淲hat incumbent wants that type of district right now?鈥�
Fight continues
Blackmon was raised in Canton, 鈥渨hen Jim Crow was in full bloom.鈥�
Black children attended separate schools, and during cotton-picking season, classes let out early as rickety trucks with wooden sides arrived to take students to the fields, where they spent hours working.
At home, he watched those inequalities play out in quieter ways.
His father, a World War II veteran who left the sharecropping farm where Blackmon鈥檚 grandfather had worked, struggled to find steady work in Mississippi after returning from military service and becoming involved in civil rights organizing. He eventually left for New York to make a living 鈥� part of a generation of Black veterans who faced barriers to jobs and opportunities their white counterparts received.
Blackmon remembers sitting nearby as his father and other community leaders gathered on the porch, talking late into the night about forming a local NAACP chapter.
鈥淚t was embedded in my memory and experience that it was worth the struggle,鈥� he said.
When the Voting Rights Act passed, it did not immediately change those realities. In places like Canton, federal officials set up registration tables on downtown streets so Black residents could sign up to vote without facing harassment or intimidation from local authorities.
In the years that followed, Blackmon and other lawyers used the law to challenge at-large election systems that prevented Black communities from electing candidates of their choice. Cities and counties were forced to redraw maps into single-member districts.
When those districts still diluted Black voting strength, activists returned to court.
鈥淲ithout the Voting Rights Act, Mississippi would look so much different than it looks now,鈥� Blackmon said.
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Willingham reported from Boston, Brook from New Orleans and Amy from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Kristin Hall and Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Safiyah Riddle and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
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