Until this spring, Memphis anchored Tennessee’s only majority-Black congressional district — the 9th, about 60 percent Black. In May, the Republican-led legislature met in special session and cracked Memphis into three congressional districts. The new 9th now runs from Memphis across rural southern Tennessee all the way to the suburbs south of Nashville. Under the new map, no congressional district in Tennessee will have even a one-third minority population. Each piece of Memphis is attached to larger, mostly white, rural Republican areas. The map made its debut in the August primary.
In Houston, the consequence has a face. Texas Republicans’ redrawn map forced two Black Democratic incumbents to run against each other, and in the May primary runoff, Rep. Christian Menefee defeated Rep. Al Green, ending Green’s two decades in Congress. Majority-Black neighborhoods, including Sunnyside and South Park, were drawn out of Green’s old district. He leaves office in January.
Why is this happening now? On April 29, the Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais, striking down Louisiana’s second majority-Black district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The vote was 6-3, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority. The ruling rewrote the test for vote-dilution claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: challengers must now offer alternative maps that meet all of a state’s political goals, and must show a state drew lines because of race rather than party. Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, reading portions of her dissent from the bench. Voting-rights lawyers say the decision leaves Section 2 effectively requiring proof of intentional discrimination — a bar the law was written to remove.
The redrawing moved fast after Callais. Louisiana lawmakers passed a map dismantling the majority-Black district at the center of the case and splitting Baton Rouge’s Black population between districts. Florida’s new map effectively eliminates the 20th District, a nearly majority-Black South Florida seat. In Alabama, after lower courts blocked the legislature’s map again in late May, the Supreme Court stepped in on June 2 and reinstated it for this year’s elections. North Carolina’s legislature had already moved months before Callais, folding heavily Republican counties into the state’s most heavily Black district.
A CNN analysis in May found the redistricting push could erase as many as six districts held by members of the Congressional Black Caucus — the largest single-election loss of Black representation, in absolute numbers, since Reconstruction.
That is what Friday is about. The March on Washington: Defend the Vote gathers at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28 — the anniversary of the 1963 march — convened by the National Action Network and the Drum Major Institute, with the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III. Details are at marchonwashington2026.com.
And there is something to do closer to home: your congressional district may have changed without your knowledge. Before November, check your state election office’s voter portal or sample ballot to see which district you will vote in. The House’s own lookup tool, house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative, shows your current district — but it may not yet reflect the newly redrawn lines you will vote under this fall.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.