On May 8, hundreds of civil rights protesters, carrying signs that said, “No Jim Crow Maps” and “Hands Off Our Vote,” descended on Baton Rouge to oppose a plan by Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature to dismantle one or both of the state’s majority-Black congressional districts.
uncertain
that → carry → districts
They packed a Senate hearing, occupied three overflow rooms, and spilled into the Capitol’s halls.
asserted
They → pack → halls
Just 10 days earlier, the Supreme Court had destroyed the Voting Rights Act in its Louisiana v. Callais decision, triggering a mad rush to eliminate majority-Black districts across Southern states.
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Court → destroy → states
The next day, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, despite 42,000 already-cast ballots, suspended Louisiana’s House primaries to give his party time to push through a new map reducing Black representation in Congress before the 2026 midterms.
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Landry → cast → midterms
It was his district, stretching 200 miles from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, that Callais had set the stage for invalidating, with Justice Samuel Alito calling it “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
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Alito → stretch → it
The Supreme Court’s decision decimating Section 2 of the VRA—which had required that racial minorities have an equal opportunity to meaningfully participate in elections—threatens to return the country to a pre-1965 America, when white supremacy was the law of the land and Congress contained no Black members from the South.
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Congress → decimate → South
“This has sent us back, in my view, over 60 years,” Fields says.
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Fields → send → years
When he appeared before the state Senate that day to testify against the new redistricting plans, he was joined by three other veteran Black politicians.
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he → appear → politicians
Although Fields, a 63-year-old lawyer, has a reputation as an even-keeled consensus builder, he grew emotional as he spoke.
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he → have → builder
“To me, it is personal,” he told the Senate committee.
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he → tell → committee
“Since Reconstruction, Louisiana has elected four African Americans to Congress.
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Louisiana → elect → Congress
And you’re looking at all of them.
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you → look → them
“You said something very profound,” state Sen. Gary Carter Jr., an African American Democrat from New Orleans, told Fields.
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Jr. → say → Fields
“From the 1870s all the way through [the] present, just you four gentlemen—that’s it.
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that → ’ → present
And now this body wants to reduce that.
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body → want → that
‘We want to cut it.
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We → want → it
That’s too many.’
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That → ’ → ?
How do we not be outraged?”
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we → outrage → ?
Before these four men, Louisiana had elected just two Black members of Congress, both during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, America’s fleeting 12-year experiment with multiracial democracy.
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Louisiana → elect → democracy
One, Fields told the senators, was John Willis Menard, who became the first Black person ever elected to Congress in 1868.
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who → tell → 1868
The other, Charles Edmund Nash, served just one term, beginning in 1875.
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other → serve → 1875
A vicious white backlash to Reconstruction made it impossible for him to get reelected amid the disputed presidential contest in 1876, which culminated in federal troops withdrawing from the South and the official end of Reconstruction.
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troops → make → Reconstruction
After Nash, “Louisiana went 114 years without a single African American in Congress,” Fields later explains in an interview.
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Fields → go → interview
During Reconstruction, racial equality was written into the Constitution through the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
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equality → write → amendments
As a result, from 1865 to 1877, roughly 2,000 Black officeholders were elected.
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officeholders → elect → 1877
That number dropped to virtually zero once Jim Crow’s racist legal regime took hold just a few years later, as the federal government—led by the Supreme Court—abandoned enforcement of the Reconstruction amendments.
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government → drop → amendments
Fields came to the state Capitol to warn that history was repeating itself.
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history → come → itself
As his colleague Rep. Troy Carter—Gary Carter Jr.’s uncle—told the legislature: “The question before us is not merely about lines on a map.
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question → tell → map
The question before us is whether we will honor the principle that every citizen deserves equal protection of the law.”
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citizen → honor → law
Their pleas fell on deaf ears.
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pleas → fall → ears
Three weeks later, GOP legislators approved a map designed to oust Fields, changing his district from a solidly Democratic seat whose population was 53 percent Black to an overwhelmingly white one, in which 65 percent of voters cast ballots for Donald Trump in 2024.
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percent → approve → 2024
Immediately after the new map passed, the self-described “non-African American” litigants who brought the Callais case launched a new lawsuit seeking to eliminate Louisiana’s last majority-Black district, represented by Troy Carter, thus leaving the state with no Black representation in Congress.
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who → pass → Congress
Amazingly, Fields has fought this battle before.
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Fields → fight → battle
He was first elected to Congress in 1992, but his district was dismantled in 1996 following the Supreme Court ruling in a racial gerrymandering lawsuit filed on behalf of a group of mostly white voters who charged they had been discriminated against.
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they → elect → voters
He returned to Congress nearly 30 years later, only to meet the same fate.
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He → return → fate
His political career epitomizes the rise and fall of Black political power in America’s post-civil rights era—a story that darkly echoes the Supreme Court’s shameful elimination of equal rights for Black Americans in the 19th century.
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that → epitomize → century
Other Southern states, including Tennessee and Alabama, also rushed to eliminate majority-Black districts held by Democrats.
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states → include → Democrats
Thanks to today’s Supreme Court, more than a dozen such seats across the region could be drawn away in time for the 2028 elections, triggering the largest drop in Black congressional representation since the end of Reconstruction.
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seats → draw → Reconstruction
That’s just the opening act.
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That → ’ → ?
Up to 140 Black- and Hispanic-majority state legislative districts could also be erased—not to mention seats on city councils, school boards, and some county commissions.
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districts → erase → councils
…and 226 more, not listed.
The Aporia
