How Alabama Black Voters Lost Their Historic Political Voice
By Darius Spearman (africanelements)
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A Sudden Reversal in the Deep South
On June 2, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a divided decision (cbsnews.com). This 6–3 emergency ruling cleared the way for Alabama to use a highly disputed 2023 congressional map for the upcoming midterm elections (cbsnews.com, gvwire.com). Civil rights advocates argue that this decision erases a newly created majority-Black congressional district (ap.org). The ruling has raised intense concerns about voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering across the nation (blackenterprise.com).
In 2024, the state of Alabama celebrated a monumental milestone (splcenter.org). For the first time in history, the state sent two Black representatives to the United States Congress simultaneously (youtube.com). This rapid shift from a historic breakthrough to a sudden political rollback requires looking at the history behind the headlines. One must examine the legal fights, historical struggles, and voting boundaries of the Deep South to understand this crisis.
Black Representation in Alabama’s Congressional Delegation
2024 Court Map
(2 of 7 Seats)
2026 Reinstated Map
(1 of 7 Seats)
The Reconstruction Era and the Backlash
To understand modern gerrymandering, one must look back to the Reconstruction era. Following the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, Black Alabamians briefly gained substantial political power (wikipedia.org). During this hopeful period, Alabama voters elected three Black representatives to Congress (wikipedia.org). These pioneers were Benjamin Sterling Turner in 1870, James T. Rapier in 1872, and Jeremiah Haralson in 1874 (wikipedia.org).
However, this progress faced swift and violent opposition (wikipedia.org). White conservative Democrats sought to reclaim absolute control of the state legislature (wikipedia.org). These lawmakers utilized aggressive map drawing to destroy Black political power (wikipedia.org). In 1876, the legislature redrew congressional boundaries (wikipedia.org). They packed Black voters into a single district (wikipedia.org). This change forced Rapier and Haralson to run against each other in the same election (wikipedia.org). The tactic split the Republican vote and allowed a white Democrat to win (wikipedia.org). These aggressive Reconstruction-era efforts to dilute Black voting power laid the foundation for decades of exclusion.
A Century of Silence and the Voting Rights Act
Following the post-Reconstruction backlash, Black Alabamians faced total exclusion from the political process. The state formalized Jim Crow laws (wikipedia.org). These laws included literacy tests and poll taxes designed to block Black citizens from casting ballots (wikipedia.org). From 1877 until 1992, Alabama did not send a single Black representative to Congress (wikipedia.org).
This long era of silence finally began to crack with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (law.edu). Section 2 of this landmark legislation prohibited any voting practice that resulted in the denial of the right to vote based on race (law.edu). Later, the 1986 Supreme Court case *Thornburg v. Gingles* established a clear three-part test (law.edu). This test required states to draw majority-minority districts when a minority group is compact, cohesive, and blocked by white bloc voting (law.edu). Under this mandate, Alabama drew its first modern majority-Black district in 1992 (wikipedia.org). Voters in the 7th Congressional District elected Democrat Earl Hilliard (wikipedia.org). He became the first Black congressman from Alabama in over one hundred years (wikipedia.org). Despite this victory, the state continued to limit Black representation to just one single district (splcenter.org).
The Shelby Catalyst and the Road to Milligan
The modern legal war over voting rights took a drastic turn in 2013 (brennancenter.org). In *Shelby County v. Holder*, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (brennancenter.org). This decision gutted Section 5 (brennancenter.org). It eliminated the requirement for discriminatory states to get federal preclearance before changing voting laws (brennancenter.org). Without preclearance, civil rights groups had to rely on slow, retroactive lawsuits under Section 2 to fight bad maps (brennancenter.org).
This shift led directly to the lawsuit in *Allen v. Milligan* (aclu.org). Following the 2020 census, Alabama lawmakers drew a map that packed most Black voters into the 7th District (aclu.org). Black residents made up twenty-seven percent of the population but had a voice in only fourteen percent of the districts (splcenter.org, aclu.org). In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a surprising 5–4 decision (aclu.org). Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Alabama likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (aclu.org). The court ordered the state to create a second district where Black voters had an opportunity to elect their preferred candidate (aclu.org). This landmark ruling was a massive victory for civil rights advocates.
Partisan versus Racial Gerrymandering
To navigate these legal battles, one must understand the difference between partisan and racial gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing district boundaries to favor one political party over another (constitutioncenter.org). Racial gerrymandering involves drawing boundaries based on race to dilute minority voting power (constitutioncenter.org). The Supreme Court treats these two practices very differently (constitutioncenter.org).
In the 2019 case *Rucho v. Common Cause*, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable in federal courts (constitutioncenter.org). This means federal judges cannot rule on claims of political unfairness (constitutioncenter.org). In contrast, racial gerrymandering claims are fully justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act (constitutioncenter.org). Because racial identity and political party preference are often highly correlated in the South, states frequently defend their maps by claiming their motives were purely partisan (aclu.org). This defense allows states to argue that they were engaging in legal political maneuvering rather than illegal racial discrimination (aclu.org). Challengers face the heavy burden of proving that race, rather than politics, drove the creation of the map (constitutioncenter.org). This difficulty has made black voter disenfranchisement a complex issue to fight in federal court.
Alabama’s Demographic Representation Gap
Opportunity Districts and Crossover Voting
The legal fight in Alabama often centers on the difference between a majority-Black district and an opportunity district. A majority-Black district is an electoral district where Black voters make up fifty percent or more of the voting-age population (aclu.org). An opportunity district is one where Black voters make up less than fifty percent of the voting-age population but can still elect their candidate of choice (aclu.org). These opportunity districts rely heavily on crossover voting (aclu.org).
Crossover voting occurs when a portion of the white majority votes for the candidate preferred by Black voters (aclu.org). This behavior is often driven by shared political party alignment, as many white Democrats vote for Black Democratic candidates (aclu.org). In areas with significant crossover voting, a cohesive Black voting bloc of forty to forty-eight percent can combine with a white crossover vote of fifteen to thirty percent to win an election (aclu.org). Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, courts may require states to draw majority-minority districts (law.edu). Crossover districts are not explicitly required by the law but are recognized as effective remedies (aclu.org). When the federal court appointed a special master to redraw Alabama’s map for the 2024 election, they created an opportunity district in the 2nd Congressional District with a Black voting-age population of 48.7% (splcenter.org). Democrat Shomari Figures won this district, creating a historic shift (splcenter.org, youtube.com).
The Callais Shift and the 2026 Emergency Reversal
The historic political shift of 2024 was short-lived. In the spring of 2026, the Supreme Court issued a major decision in *Louisiana v. Callais* (theguardian.com). This 6–3 decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander (theguardian.com). The conservative majority ruled that compliance with the Voting Rights Act does not justify using race as the predominant factor in redistricting (theguardian.com). This is especially true if the resulting map does not meet the state’s non-racial, legitimate districting objectives just as well (theguardian.com).
These legitimate objectives include neutral, race-neutral criteria such as geographic compactness, contiguity, keeping political subdivisions intact, protecting incumbents, or targeting a partisan distribution of voters (ncsl.org). Because states can pursue these non-racial goals, a plaintiff’s map that fails to meet them cannot be used to prove a Voting Rights Act violation (theguardian.com). In a sharp dissent, Justice Elena Kagan declared that the *Callais* ruling made Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act a dead letter (theguardian.com). Armed with this new precedent, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed emergency applications to suspend the use of the court-drawn map (cbsnews.com, alabamaag.gov).
The Emergency Stay and the Shadow Docket
The legal battle in Alabama returned directly to the Supreme Court (cbsnews.com). On June 2, 2026, the Supreme Court issued an emergency stay order in the ongoing *Allen v. Milligan* litigation (cbsnews.com). It is important to note that this is not a new or separate case (cbsnews.com). Rather, it is a subsequent development in the same long-running legal battle (cbsnews.com). The Supreme Court voted 6–3 along ideological lines to freeze the lower court’s injunction (cbsnews.com). This decision allowed Alabama to use its 2023 map, which has only one majority-Black district, for the upcoming midterm elections (cbsnews.com, gvwire.com).
The Court issued this ruling as an unsigned *per curiam* opinion (cbsnews.com). A *per curiam* opinion represents the court as a collective body rather than being authored by a single named justice (justia.com). It carries the full legal authority and precedential weight of any other Supreme Court ruling (justia.com). These opinions are commonly used to resolve emergency stay applications on the court’s shadow docket without full briefings (justia.com). In this order, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court failed to give the Alabama legislature a presumption of good faith (cbsnews.com). The presumption of legislative good faith requires courts to assume a state legislature acted without discriminatory intent unless challengers prove otherwise (justia.com). The high court stated that the lower court erred by interpreting the state’s refusal to draw a second district as proof of discriminatory intent (cbsnews.com). Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a sharp dissent, accusing the majority of causing electoral chaos (cbsnews.com).
The Chaos of Voided Primaries and Demographic Realities
The immediate impact of the Supreme Court’s June 2026 decision has been felt across Alabama. The state has a significant demographic gap (splcenter.org). Black Alabamians make up approximately twenty-seven percent of the total population (splcenter.org). Under the 2024 court-drawn map, Black voters had representation in two of the state’s seven congressional districts (splcenter.org, youtube.com). This equaled 28.6% of the seats, matching their demographic share (splcenter.org).
Under the restored 2023 map, Black voters are relegated to only one out of seven districts (cbsnews.com, gvwire.com). This cuts their representation in half to just 14.3% of the seats (cbsnews.com). The partisan stakes are incredibly high in this battle (gvwire.com). The restored map is expected to shift the delegation from a 5–2 Republican majority to a 6–1 Republican advantage, or even a 7–0 sweep (cbsnews.com, gvwire.com). To enforce this sudden change, Alabama officials had to take drastic actions (aldailynews.com). They passed emergency legislation to void the results of congressional primary elections previously held on May 19, 2026, in the affected districts (aldailynews.com). They scheduled a special primary election for August 11, 2026, under the newly restored state-drawn lines (aldailynews.com). This decision has disrupted campaigns and created immense confusion for voters (aldailynews.com).
Timeline of Black Congressional Representation in Alabama
The Consequences of Election Disruption
Voiding the May 19 primary elections has led to massive administrative and political challenges. Voters faced extreme confusion because the ballots they cast in May were declared void for the purpose of determining nominees (aldailynews.com). Turnout is expected to decline significantly because late-summer special primary elections historically draw far fewer voters than consolidated spring primaries (aldailynews.com).
Candidate campaigns have been heavily disrupted (aldailynews.com). Candidates must now stretch their financial resources to cover a three-month primary season extension (aldailynews.com). Local governments also face substantial taxpayer costs to run an entire second set of elections (aldailynews.com). State election officials had less than one day to reassign voter rolls in fourteen affected counties after the rolls locked (aldailynews.com). This chaotic situation shows how the political landscape has shifted rapidly in the post-civil rights era. The battle over representation is no longer just about drawing lines but also about navigating the administrative hurdles of sudden legal changes.
The Role of the Court-Appointed Special Master
When the state legislature initially refused to comply with the court’s orders, the federal court had to step in (splcenter.org). They appointed a special master to draw constitutional and legally compliant district boundaries (splcenter.org). A special master is an independent, court-appointed expert, such as a demographer or retired judge (lls.edu). They are delegated the task of drawing maps when a legislature fails to pass a legally compliant plan (lls.edu).
Their legal authority is derived directly from the court’s power to enforce remedies for voting rights violations (lls.edu). The appointment of a special master helps streamline complex redistricting litigation (lls.edu). It also reduces taxpayer costs by avoiding competing depositions from multiple party-retained experts (lls.edu). In 2023, the special master successfully drew the map that led to the historic 2024 election (splcenter.org, youtube.com). However, under the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, the work of the special master has been cast aside in favor of the legislature’s original map (cbsnews.com).
The Ongoing Battle Over Voting Rights
The Supreme Court’s June 2026 decision represents a massive historical pendulum swing. Six decades after the marches in Selma paved the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the legal landscape has shifted dramatically. Only two years after Alabama achieved a historic breakthrough in Black congressional representation, the state has returned to a map with only one majority-Black district (cbsnews.com).
By prioritizing states’ rights and partisan goals over racial representation under the new *Callais* doctrine, the Supreme Court has narrowed the path for minority voter representation (theguardian.com). This ongoing legal battle ensures that the struggle over gerrymandering and civil rights will remain at the forefront of American politics for years to come. The history behind these headlines shows that the path to equal representation remains a continuous climb.
About the Author
Darius Spearman is a professor of Black Studies at San Diego City College, where he has been teaching for over 20 years. He is the founder of African Elements, a media platform dedicated to providing educational resources on the history and culture of the African diaspora. Through his work, Spearman aims to empower and educate by bringing historical context to contemporary issues affecting the Black community.
