By upholding Alabama’s gerrymandered districts, the supreme court is laying the groundwork for ending voting rights and political power for Black people
On Tuesday, the US supreme court in its Merrill v Milligan decision, upheld Alabama’s racially gerrymandered congressional map, which see Black people represented in only 14% of congressional districts, despite making up about 27% of Alabama’s population. This ruling is reminiscent of the holding in the supreme court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision that Black people “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”. Even though the two cases addressed two different situations, the overall disregard of the rights of Black people in America by the highest court in the country is the same.
And just as the Dred Scott decision laid the groundwork for similar rulings that led to the continuation of white political power at the expense of Black political power, so too does the Miller case lay the groundwork for ending voting rights and political power for Black people in this country and a path towards white political power at all levels of government.
April England-Albright is an attorney and the Black Voters Matter Fund (BVMF) legal director. Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown are BVMF cofounders
