The Rev. Timothy McDonald was a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Perry Elementary School in Brunswick, Georgia, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law.
Prior to its passage, election officials in the South routinely used blatant discriminatory practices like jelly bean counts and literacy tests to deny Black voters access to the ballot box. The Voting Rights Act made those obstacles illegal.
McDonald, the now-71-year-old pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in East Atlanta recalls celebrating with his classmates and their teacher, Ms. Florence, six decades ago when the landmark legislation was enacted.
“We just had a little party,” he told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. “Ms. Florence, she told us about it and told us what it meant as it related to the Civil Rights Movement. We just celebrated and clapped and kind of danced around the room.”
Now that treasured memory has been tainted, thanks to last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively nullified key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In response, Georgia faith leaders are urging Black voters to turnout in droves during this year’s midterm election cycle.
McDonald joined pastors Jay Augustine and Bo Barber II in sounding the alarm Tuesday during a press conference outside Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta. They expressed shock and outrage that one of the landmark achievements of the Civil Rights Movement has been gutted as a result of the ruling.
“The right to be heard through the vote is still a sacred right,” Barber said during the gathering. “It is not something that is arbitrary. It is not something that is gifted to us, but it belongs to all of us as Americans.”
In its April 29 Louisiana v. Callais ruling, the Supreme Court effectively voided key portions of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 was a 1982 amendment to the Voting Rights Act that made it illegal for states to enact voting laws that resulted in discriminatory outcomes, regardless of the law’s intent. It’s been used to bar state legislatures from drawing partisan political maps that effectively dilute Black voting power, a gerrymandering technique known as packing and cracking.
The court determined, however, that drawing political maps explicitly based on race violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The ruling makes it much harder for lawmakers to justify drawing majority-Black districts in efforts to increase Black representation in Congress and the Georgia General Assembly.
President Donald Trump and Republican leaders across the U.S. have already called for GOP-led state legislatures, including Georgia’s, to redraw their political maps to eliminate some majority-Black voting districts in response to Louisiana v. Callais.
Political analysts expect redistricting efforts will result in diluted Black representation in Congress.
Gov. Brian Kemp has rejected calls to redraw Georgia’s political maps ahead of the November midterm elections, which are expected to result in the GOP losing control of the House of Representatives and possibly the U.S. Senate. Kemp has said he will call for a redistricting session ahead of the 2028 presidential election cycle.
U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop’s 2nd Congressional District has been identified as a target for redistricting efforts. The largely rural central and southwest Georgia territory has a population that is 49% Black and 39% white.
Bishop called Louisiana v. Callais the latest in a line of Supreme Court decisions that have left the Voting Rights Act a shell of what it once was.
“This decision ignores our country’s history of racism and reopens the door to the Jim Crow era, undemocratic tactics that suppressed and denied power to minority voters and communities,” Bishop said in a press release.
“Nonetheless, we shall not be moved, and I will not be deterred. I will continue to use the democratic process to fight for free and fair elections and do all I can to strengthen democratic safeguards,” he said.
McDonald said the ruling is a major setback but warned Black voters not to panic.
“The whole bill is not gutted and all is not lost,” he said. “It does affect congressional races tremendously. … It’s bad, but it’s not as bad as some people think.”
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