In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to effectively eliminate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Following this decision, the Republican-controlled state legislature in Tennessee passed new redistricting maps that eliminated the state’s sole-Black majority district. Republicans in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi are currently working to dismantle the majority-minority districts in their own states.    

These efforts have drawn intense criticism from Democrats. Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) remarked, “We are now, legally, in a posture where Black communities are not able to enforce a right to elect the representatives of their choice.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY), the first Black lawmaker to lead either party in either chamber, referred to these Republican-led gerrymanders as an “unprecedented assault on Black political representation — the likes of which we have not seen since the Jim Crow era.”

Far from hyperbole, this is a horrifyingly accurate assessment of what is taking place.  

Jim Crow is infamously associated with a whole host of voter suppression tactics. These tactics may be divided into two sorts: first, and the most well-known, aimed to prevent people of color from exercising their right to vote all together. These include: demanding voters pay a poll tax, requiring them to pass a literacy test consisting of poorly worded and trick questions, as well as voter intimidation from groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

The second form of Jim Crow voter suppression aimed at minimizing – if not outright nullifying – the impact that the votes of people of color could have on elections. Perhaps the clearest example of this were the “white primaries” held by southern Democrats. For instance, in 1923, the Texas state legislature enacted a statute whereby “in no event shall a Negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic party primary election” and that “should a Negro vote in a Democratic primary election, such ballot shall be void.”

All-white primaries were common across the south and were even, for a time, upheld by the Supreme Court. In Newberry v. United States (1921), the Court ruled that the Constitution does not grant Congress the authority to regulate the primaries or nomination processes of any political party. As an independent organization, the Democratic Party was thus allowed to restrict who could join their “club,” what rights and benefits were exclusive to its members, as well as how they conducted their own internal proceedings.

Importantly, however, because the Democrats dominated politics in the Jim Crow south, whoever won in the primary almost always won in the general election. This meant that even if people of color managed to overcome every obstacle and cast their vote, those ballots were rendered meaningless from the outset. The winner had already been decided by the white electorate. 

This, of course, was the point. As South Carolina Governor Olin D. Johnson remarked in 1944, “History has taught us that we must keep our white Democratic primaries pure and unadulterated.” He continued, “we South Carolinians will use the necessary methods to retain white supremacy in our primaries and to safeguard the homes and happiness of our people. White supremacy will be maintained in our primaries.”

As Johnson’s remarks make clear, for the southern Democrats, white supremacy in their primaries meant white supremacy in their general elections and thus the guarantee of white supremacy – regardless of if or how people of color voted – across the South.

Ultimately, white primaries were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Allwright (1944). In the Court’s majority opinion, Justice Stanley Reed wrote, “The United States is a constitutional democracy. Its organic law grants to all citizens a right to participate in the choice of elected officials without restriction by any state because of race. This grant to the people of the opportunity for choice is not to be nullified by a state through casting its electoral process in a form which permits a private organization to practice racial discrimination in the election. Constitutional rights would be of little value if they could be thus indirectly denied. “

Thurgood Marshall, who argued the case on behalf of the plaintiff and would go on to become the nation’s first Black Supreme Court Justice, remarked that this decision “changed the whole complexion of the South.” And he was right – it paved the way for tens of thousands of Black people to register to vote and meaningfully engage in the democratic process.  

Unfortunately, after Louisiana, that “complexion” is now in danger. Republican gerrymanders across the south threaten to nullify “the opportunity for choice” just as white primaries once did. Consider Memphis for example. The Republican-controlled Tennessee state legislature split the city’s 63% Black population across three conservative, white-majority districts. In doing so, they diluted the Black vote to electoral irrelevance. This ensures that, regardless of whether or if Black people vote, congressional representatives will be decided by whites-only. Once again, the constitutional rights of Black people in the south are being “indirectly denied.”

The history of white primaries makes clear that the importance of the right to vote goes beyond simply having access to the voting booth. What makes voting so precious is that it allows each person to express their political voice and act towards meaningful change. In voting, each of us helps shape the direction of our communities as well as the nation as whole. This does not mean that one’s preferred candidate must always win; but rather that our votes must always be able to influence the outcome. They must always matter.

This dynamic is fundamental to a representative democracy. But if, as in Memphis, hundreds of thousands of votes are effectively “nullified” by politicians who have pre-rigged every election in their favor, then what we are left with is a two-tier system where white voters participate in the democratic process, while Black people vote in vain – their rights reduced to a mere symbolic gesture with no impact on the final result.

The Supreme Court justified its ruling in Louisiana by appealing to the “great strides” the country has made in “ending entrenched racial discrimination.” However, what the aftermath of their decision makes clear is how easily decades of progress can be unmade. In their haste to rule that racism had been eradicated – a task for which the Court is woefully unqualified for – they have laid the foundation for a new Jim Crow.

The dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and its immediate ramifications is not only a tragedy for people of color. It is a constitutional crisis that undermines the (already questionable) legitimacy of American democracy.

We cannot continue to allow politicians to enact brazenly partisan and racist gerrymanders. We cannot continue to tolerate a system where politicians elect their voters. We cannot continue to permit the gradual erosion of the very values that America was found upon. We cannot continue to sit idly by as fascism and white nationalism sweep the nation. 

To make America great, we must make it a country where the voices of the people alone reign supreme – a nation wherein everyone’s vote matters.  

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