Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
All of these articles fail to mention that since 2007, Tennessee’s 9th district has been held by Steve Cohen… Who by all accounts is not a black man. In fact, since 1823, every representative has been white, except for Harold Ford and Harold Ford Jr, who were more of a political machine who represented the white areas than real representation of the black people of the district. Even then, they were only in power for about 20 years out of the time since 1823. This parallels what happened after reconstruction failed… Just using the system (gerrymandering) to disenfranchise other than polling taxes and literacy tests.