The Supreme Court’s Recent Voting Rights Case Clears the Way for “Jim Crow” to Arise from the Grave

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on May 3, 2026

A civil rights demonstration by members of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP during their 1944 "Parade of Victory."

An Editorial Opinion

On April 29, 2026, in a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Louisiana's congressional map, which included a second majority-Black district, was an unconstitutional act of racial gerrymandering.

For all practical purposes, this ruling gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It also clears the way for “Jim Crow” to arise from the grave.

Once again, “cradle to the grave” white racial discrimination against America’s Black citizens, particularly in Old Confederate states, has been unleashed. As a result, southern states are moving at breakneck speed to redraw their redistricting maps to eradicate predominantly Black congressional districts.

Racial gerrymandering that favors white voters, which the Court authorized, will impact redistricting at all levels of government (e.g., state legislatures, county commissions, school boards, city councils, etc.).  It will spread across the nation faster than untreated cancer.

For the first time in over 100 years, all three branches of the federal government are openly hostile to the enforcement of constitutional and statutory provisions that were intended to guarantee Blacks equal rights in the political, criminal justice, economic, financial, housing, public accommodations, and educational opportunity zones of life. Whenever this socio-economic-political alignment occurs in America, Blacks suffer suffocating and humiliating racial discrimination for 100-year periods.

Once again, African Americans have arrived back at the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford movement where the U.S. Supreme Court declared: Blacks, whether freed or enslaved, have no rights that white men are bound to respect.

What is worse, the current President of the U.S. feeds white racism to his MAGA base of voters every day by demonizing America’s Black citizens. To him, they are “low-IQ,” “dogs,” “lazy,” “criminals,” “thugs,” “Looters,” “dumb,” “animals,” “rabid,” and “slow.” He says Black nations are “Shithole countries” and Black communities in the U.S. are a “rat and rodent infested mess.” He calls inner-city neighborhoods “Hell” and “war zones.” This man spews his racial hatred of Black Americans as though we are cursed members of society.

What is more, this President has convinced a clear majority of white America that Black Americans are nobody. To him, their lives do not matter, and their history is irrelevant. He has made diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a bad thing. He views any form of black empowerment as an existential threat to his growing White Power Movement.

Is there is pathway forward for Black America? I think so, but it is very different from all past solutions we deployed to combat white racism. Our liberation this time must come from: (a) outthinking and outworking the forces that oppress us today, (b) lessening our reliance on weak, scared, uninformed, and unprepared political leaders, (c) forming new strategic alliances with resourceful and well-positioned allies, and (d) using emerging, paradigm-shifting technology to our advantage.

Once again, we must kill “Jim Crow” because it has arisen from the dead. This, we can do. This, we are committed to doing. The President knows the "Art of the Deal," but we know the "Art of Political Warfare."