White rule hurts America

At the statehouse in Nashville, Tennessee, Republicans acted decisively on May 7 to restore white rule to the former Confederate state.

Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, Governor Bill Lee called a special session of the Tennessee legislature to redraw their Congressional map in a way that splits Black voters in Memphis across three Congressional districts, diluting their impact in any one district and denying them the right to elect a representative of their choice—or, at least, clearly intending to. In this case of racial gerrymandering, the representative whose seat they aim to steal is a white man, Steve Cohen (TN-9). The map that Republicans passed draws Cohen out of the new 9th Congressional district, but goes out of its way to include the home of Brent Taylor, the Republican state legislator who has already filed to run for the seat.

U.S. Senator Marcia Blackburn, who is running to follow Bill Lee as governor next year, claims in the language that the Supreme Court majority has endorsed that the point of this is to “keep Tennessee a red state.” In plain Southern English, that translates as “keep Tennessee in the trusted hands of good white people.”

State representative Justin Jones met protestors in the gallery of the Tennessee Capitol and burned a Confederate flag to demonstrate how the majority’s move harkened back to worst of the state’s secessionist past.

But this reminder that the racist gerrymander is a Confederate tactic should also prompt us to recall that white rule has never been good for most Americans – especially for poor white citizens of the South. When the Confederacy was defeated and formerly enslaved people became US citizens following the ratification of the 13^th amendment in 1865, they joined hands with white people in the North and South who were willing to see one another as allies. Within four years after the end of the Civil War, white and Black alliances controlled every state house in the South. Together, they elected new leaders—some white, many formerly enslaved African-Americans. Almost all of the Southern legislatures were controlled by either a predominantly Black alliance or a strong interracial Fusion coalition by the end of the 1860s.

These new fusion coalitions enacted new constitutions that promised a better identity for all Americans. They also built the first public schools and gave all persons a constitutional right to public education—something that to this day has not been done in the federal constitution. In our home state of North Carolina, the new constitution stated that “beneficent provision to the poor, the orphan, and the widow is the first duty of a civilized and Christian state.” It also guaranteed labor rights and a right for all workers to the “enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor.” When Black and white people came together as fellow citizens for the first time in American public life, they understood that labor without living wages is another form of slavery—not just for Black people, but for all people. They expanded access to the ballot and wrote a new fairness into the criminal justice system.

This is the Southern history that today’s advocates of white rule want us to forget.

By playing to racial fears through lies about immigrants, “woke culture,” and DEI, the MAGA movement has worked to consolidate power for the billionaires who are the heirs of the South’s plantation owners. They have called the South’s majority minority districts “racist” in an appeal to white people who have been told that they are “losing their country.” Their last great hope is to try to hold onto a Republican majority in Congress by getting rid of every Representative that the Voting Rights Act made possible for Black and Brown communities in the South. But they don’t want people to know that this will hurt most of us.

With the help of our friends at the Institute for Policy Studies, we asked after the Callais decision what the policy impact would have been for poor and low-income people if the Voting Rights Act had not been there to shield against actions like those of the Tennessee legislature for the past four decades. It’s important to note that, until a revision to the VRA in 1982 that made Black-majority districts possible, Black voters from the South were not able to elect representatives of their choice. So we’ve really only experienced about four decades of Black voters in the South having representation in the US Congress. In every case, those districts elected Democrats to represent them.

Since those members came to Congress, there have only been three two-year periods when Democrats controlled the White House, Senate, and House: 1993-1994 under Clinton; 2009-2010 under Obama; and 2021-2022 under Biden. In the first two, the Democratic majority in the House was enormous – 258 Democrats to 176 Republicans in the 103rd Congress under Clinton; and 257 Democrats to 178 Republicans in the 111th Congress under Obama. Most of the legislation that passed both of those Congresses passed by a margin greater than the number of seats that Southern legislatures plan to restore to white rule. But the single largest legislative achievement of the 111th Congress – the Affordable Care Act, which expanded access to healthcare to more than 45 million Americans – passed by a vote of 219 to 212 in the House of Representatives. Without representatives of Black voters from the South, there would be no ACA.

The 117th Congress, elected during the COVID crisis along with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, passed more legislation to benefit poor and working people than any Congress since the 1970s. None of those bills could have passed without the Representatives Black voters sent to the 117th Congress from the South. They helped pass the American Rescue Plan that provided $1.9 trillion in economic relief, including direct cash payments to poor and working people. They cast decisive votes for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which put $1.2 trillion into infrastructure improvements, including roads, bridges, and broadband, and added stipulations that workers get paid living wages and contractors have fair access to bidding. Without them, the 117th Congress could not have passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which further expanded access to healthcare and focused on reducing healthcare costs and addressing climate change, with significant investments in clean energy.

We protested and even when to jail during the 117th Congress because its leadership, particularly in the Senate, was not willing to do nearly enough with the power they had at that time – including taking action to defend voting rights when it was clear to anyone paying attention what the Supreme Court and Southern legislatures intended to do. But it is also true that the good they did with the votes of members elected by Black voters in the South made a real difference for tens of millions of Americans. Those people have felt over the past year what it means for the social safety net to be ripped out from under them. We know the difference that representation makes, and we know it impacts all of us.

This is why our response to the assertion of white rule in the South must be a movement of Black, white, brown, Asian, and Native people from all walks of life coming together to build a new electorate that will overwhelm MAGA’s efforts to subvert the will of the people. They would not be fighting this hard to gerrymander every last district they think they possibly can if they did not know that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose them. They only have power now because, for far too long, more than a third of the electorate hasn’t even been engaged in what we call “historic turnout” elections.

We’ve talked to poor and marginalized voters across America, and they have told us why they don’t participate: no one speaks to them. They are not wrong. Both parties have ignored poor people for far too long. But our faith teaches us that the stones that have been rejected must be the chief cornerstone of a reconstruction effort. We must build a movement that lifts the voices of everyone who’s hurting because of the policies that white rule enables – policies that take from the poor, extract from the land, wage wars of choice to benefit billionaires, and harm immigrants and vulnerable neighbors. If everyone who’s been harmed by the policies of the 119th Congress can join hands with a moral resistance and push together for representatives who will stand up to the abuse of power, then real accountability is coming in 2027. And a Third Reconstruction is in reach when the 121st Congress convenes in 2029.

It won’t happen because heroes ride in to save us. It will happen when we build a movement to demand it. That’s work that each of us can do today, wherever we are – and every day until we win the government we want for every child of God.

As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!