‘We’re Still Here’: Young Black Democrats Fight Through Gerrymandering

Read the top story of the day in your inbox.

In April, the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais essentially gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, enabling states to engage in racial gerrymandering through new congressional maps designed to favor Republicans. The ruling eviscerated one of the most effective pieces of civil rights law, and gave a green light to Republican legislatures to dismantle pockets of blue that have long existed in the American South, as well as disenfranchise a population of Black Americans that has struggled with exercising its voting power for centuries.

Under the direction of President Trump, Tennessee was the first to introduce and implement a post-Callais map, which eliminated the state’s sole Democratic congressional district, covering most of the majority-Black city of Memphis.

By “cracking” Memphis into three pieces, the Ninth District was transformed to favor Republican candidates, after being a Democratic stronghold for decades. Steve Cohen (D-TN) has served as the district’s representative since 2007, but as a result of the gerrymander, he announced that he would cancel his bid for re-election this spring.

His primary opponent, state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, did not give up so easily.

More from Naomi Bethune

Pearson continued his fight to represent a district that favored Trump by 21 points in 2024, facing state Sen. Brent Taylor, a staunch supporter of Trump who has vowed to “fight every single day for the MAGA agenda and put America First.” Despite these disadvantages, Pearson has run an energetic campaign that at least one poll shows within striking distance. Polling from Hart Research has Taylor up only 48-44 in the deep-red district.

National Democrats gave a vote of confidence to Pearson last week by placing him on the critical Red to Blue list, which gives candidates access to fundraising resources and support.

Speaking with the Prospect, Pearson said that his messaging on voter issues hasn’t changed, but “my geography has.” With the Ninth District now containing an overwhelming number of Republican voters, Pearson is tasked with courting votes that might not have been as essential prior to redistricting.

“We still believe we need a better economy that works for everybody and not the people at the top. We want access to health care for everybody. We want to stop these data centers in our communities. We want gun safety laws, and we want to take big money out of politics,” Pearson said. “That’s resonating with people across the district and across political spectrums.”

Pearson is not the only Black candidate gerrymandered into Republican turf who nonetheless has an outside shot at victory. The South’s enduring legacy of organizing for voting rights is showing out again during this year’s incredibly decisive elections. Democratic Black candidates, who represent communities that have long been devoid of meaningful political representation, are soldiering on in the face of mounting odds. If they pull off the upset, it will be on the strength of surging Black turnout, which could expose the attempt to diminish Black voting power as a failure that inspired a furious counterreaction.

AN APPEALING YOUNG PROGRESSIVE with a background in environmental advocacy organizing, Pearson was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2023 via a special election. Just months later, Pearson stood alongside state Reps. Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones, leading protests calling for gun control reform after a mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

Pearson and Jones, who are both Black, were expelled from their seats by Tennessee Republicans for their participation in the protests, which was labeled as violating House rules of procedure and decorum. Johnson, who is white, was not expelled. Top Democrats, including President Biden and former President Barack Obama, condemned the expulsions that affected the lawmakers who came to be known as the “Tennessee Three.” Pearson reassumed his seat by overwhelmingly winning a special election shortly after his expulsion.

Embracing a progressive agenda, Pearson’s congressional campaign promises include passing Medicare for All, investigating the Trump administration’s alleged corruption, and seeking to limit hyperscale data center construction, a major issue in Memphis after Elon Musk’s SpaceX built a data center in the area powered by toxic gas turbines.

The Prospect in your inbox

Analysis that goes beyond the noise with in-depth, progressive reporting.

No paywall, no programmatic ads — just the reporting. Unsubscribe anytime. Submitting your email signs you up for The Daily Prospect, our weekday morning newsletter.

The race has yet to attract any national spending, but according to Federal Election Commission disclosures, Indivisible and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition have given Pearson support. Ready for the Fight PAC, a super PAC founded by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) to elevate overlooked races, has spent $300,000 attacking Taylor.

Pearson’s likability, name recognition, and enthusiastic supporters give him an edge over Taylor. He has an identity, and that is aiding his chances. He’s also been aided by a voting landscape shaped by both the impact of Callais and the second Trump presidency. Voter turnout was at its highest in decades during Tennessee’s primary elections this summer, a reflection of how the redistricting fight has invigorated political participation.

Tennessee’s status as the first state to gerrymander its congressional maps after Callais, over strong protest from Pearson and others, is having a strong influence on voting behavior this year, says Miriam Nemeth, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee.

“In my perspective, Tennessee is in many cases the canary in the coal mine,” says Nemeth. “It’s the first state to have done this, and now people are standing up and saying, ‘Not on our watch. The things that happen in Tennessee, if we don’t stop them here, they throttle out around the country and get spread out across the country.’ What voters are doing here is standing up and saying no.”

OTHER SOUTHERN STATES, especially those in the Black Belt region, which have high concentrations of Black communities, have seen similar increases in voter turnout in the shadow of redistricting.

Since 2023, Alabama’s overwhelmingly Republican state legislature had been attempting to pass a gerrymandered district map that eliminated one of its two majority-Black districts, which itself came into being after a Supreme Court ruling. Callais paved the way for that elimination, and the state drew a new map to be used in this year’s elections.

Alabama’s new congressional map has altered the Second District, which once covered the mostly Black cities of Mobile and Montgomery. It now no longer includes Mobile, and the new district now has 7 percent less of a Black population than it did previously, when Shomari Figures (D-AL) won in 2024 with 54 percent of the vote. In doing so, he became Alabama’s second Black congressional representative (the other is Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell). It was the first time in history that the state had two Black representatives in Congress.

Like Pearson, Figures is a young, Black Southern Democrat. Figures’s campaign for re-election has focused on investment in the state’s education system, improving health care access, and creating a more “inclusive, resilient Alabama economy.” Though he is not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, he is a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act.

Figures’s Republican opponent, Alabama state Rep. Rhett Marques, has made classic conservative promises during his bid for office, and holds an endorsement from Trump. With Alabama’s Second District now redrawn to aid the Republican candidate, Figures is faced with an uphill battle. But despite Trump winning the new district by over 14 points, the president’s super PAC has spent more than $800,000 trying to win the seat, a sign that Republicans are nervous about the result. Polling from the Democrats’ campaign arm in the House has showed the race tied.

Here again, strong turnout among his Black constituents would be the key for Figures, who has been campaigning on the issue of civil rights and full political participation.

“Alabama’s Second Congressional District election this year may be one of Alabama’s most important elections,” says Joshua Stockley, a professor of political science at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. “I firmly believe that if Figures pulls off the upset, then it reaffirms the power of democracy in the form of voting.”

Stockley believes that voter mobilization among Black people, spurred on by anger about gerrymandering, could be particularly influential far beyond this election.

“You may in fact have an above-average turnout among Blacks because if they don’t re-elect Figures, the long-term prospects to keep either a Black representative or a Democratic representative in that seat likely disappears for an extended period of time, decades,” says Stockley.

The Prospect reached out to Figures for comment but did not receive a response.

MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS have criticized the Democratic establishment for not providing enough support to candidates like Pearson before he got onto the Red to Blue list. (Figures, as a sitting House member, is on the Frontline Incumbents list.) Others have expressed disappointment at the lack of interest in Black candidates running for U.S. Senate in the South, like Angie Nixon (Florida) and Scott Colom (Mississippi).

Groups outside the Senate Democratic leadership have stepped up for Nixon and Colom. Bernie Sanders has sent $250,000 to a PAC supporting Nixon, while Colom has received outside support from some big-money donors, enough to release an ad featuring an endorsement from former President Barack Obama.

Pay attention to the South, says Pearson. It’s “the litmus test for America’s democracy. The South is where we decide what type of country we are going to be. We have been facing the headwinds of injustice and diluting and cracking and trying to stop Black political power for over a century, and we’re still here.”

He continues: “We’re still organizing. We’re still fighting. We’re still building, and that is what we are going to continue to do, and will not be deterred from that, no matter what they try to do.”

The post appeared first on The American Prospect.