Louisiana resident Press Robinson wasn’t surprised by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on Wednesday to strike down the state’s new majority-Black district. But he was deeply disappointed.
“They’re determined to see to it that we don’t have a voice at all,” Robinson, a participant in the case, said Wednesday, referring to Louisiana political leaders. He added that the court’s six conservative justices seem to want to take the country back to an era when Black Americans had no voting power.
The decision found that the boundaries of the district — which is represented by Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat — rely too heavily on race. This finding deals a major blow not only to Black Louisianans but also potentially to residents in majority-Black districts in other Republican controlled states, civil rights groups say.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito maintained that Louisiana’s map “is an unconstitutional gerrymander, and its use would violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
The decision overturns a map that was signed into law in 2024 after a lower court found that Louisiana’s previous congressional lines likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power. Louisiana had only one district, out of six, where Black residents could elect their preferred candidate, even though the state is approximately one-third Black.
For many Black Louisianans, the decision not only significantly weakens Section 2, which was the primary remaining tool for challenging racial discrimination in voting. It also erases what they saw as a rare, hard-fought victory for Black political representation.
“As hot as it is outside here in Louisiana, it’s been a cold, brutal day,” Dorothy Nairne, an entrepreneur who also has been involved in voting rights litigation against the state, said Wednesday. “It’s so disappointing that our long fight has been denied, but denied, delayed — we’re still here. We’re still going to fight, sleeves rolled up.”
Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, echoed this anger, condemning Wednesday’s decision as a betrayal of multiracial democracy.
“Today’s decision is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities,” he said in a statement. “The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy. This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for.”
While much of the attention following the court’s decision has focused on Louisiana, some civil rights advocates have underscored the implications for Black voters more broadly.
Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, said that the decision will likely embolden lawmakers in former slaveholding states to target and eradicate districts that have provided Black Americans a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
“The court’s decisions over the past several years have unleashed chaos in our democratic process,” Clarke, who previously served as the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, told Capital B. “And that chaos will likely result in Black power being diminished and in the broad expansion of white power at the expense of communities of color having a voice in our political process.”
A Black lawmaker in one of those former slaveholding states, U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama, acknowledged the difficult path ahead for voting rights.
Figures entered office in 2025, after winning the election to represent a majority-Black congressional district that was created following a major legal battle over Alabama’s redistricting practices.
“Though today’s decision does not make changes to Alabama’s current congressional districts, it has made proving future racial discrimination in redistricting cases significantly tougher,” he said in a statement. He added, “It will lead to states, primarily in the South, launching immediate efforts to redraw districts in ways that will dilute the impact of Black voters and drastically reduce the number of realistic opportunities to elect Black members to Congress.”
While Black voting power took a hit on Wednesday, Robinson isn’t giving up.
“The fight is certainly not over,” he said during Wednesday’s briefing. “I’m one of those people who’s willing to fight as long as I can. And I hope that there are many, many more.”
This story has been updated.
