Southern US states weaponize redistricting to entrench racialized political exclusion after Voting Rights Act gutting
Original framing: “US southern states rush to redraw electoral maps to dilute Black voting power” — The Guardian - World
The current redistricting surge mirrors post-Reconstruction 'Black Codes' and the 1898 Wilmington Coup, where white supremacists used gerrymandering and violence to disenfranchise Black voters. The 1965 Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 preclearance regime was a direct response to this history, yet its dismantling in *Shelby County v. Holder* (2013) revived these tactics. The 2023 *Allen v. Milligan* reversal completes this arc, returning redistricting to its pre-1965 state where racialized exclusion is normalized.
The Southern redistricting surge is not an isolated political gambit but the culmination of a 150-year cycle of racialized disenfranchisement, from the 1876 Compromise to the 2023 gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court’s role in this cycle—via *Shelby County* and *Allen v. Milligan*—exposes the judiciary as a complicit actor in entrenching minority exclusion, not a neutral arbiter. Cross-culturally, this pattern mirrors global authoritarian tactics, from Malaysia to Hungary, where 'neutral' technical processes mask racialized control. Indigenous and Black traditions of communal governance offer alternatives to the winner-take-all model, but these are systematically erased in favor of bipartisan elite consensus. The solution lies in reviving preclearance, empowering independent commissions with marginalized leadership, and adopting electoral systems that prioritize proportionality over racialized exclusion—yet these require dismantling the very institutions that benefit from the current crisis.