Choruses of “boo” and “racist” from Mississippians filled the room when Mississippi state Auditor Shad White told lawmakers to consider congressional redistricting to unseat incumbent U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s only Democratic and Black congressman.
“I travel all over this state, but I travel a ton in the Delta, too. And I’ll tell you this: The Delta has been at the bottom of far too many rankings for far too long, and the Delta deserves better leadership than Bennie Thompson. It just does. The Delta deserves a congressman who’s going to deliver for (it),” White said as people shouted “racist” and booed him in a meeting room at the Mississippi State Capitol joint redistricting hearing of the Legislature on Thursday.
“You can boo if you want. That’s totally fine, but I’ll just tell you. Not a lot of people want to stand up in a room like this and speak for a majority of people who want to see our congressional districts changed,” he added. “There’s a silent majority of people who want better representation for the Mississippi Delta. They want somebody better than Bennie Thompson. They want somebody who is not focused on running the Jan. 6 committee.”
Attendees were loudly objecting to White’s comments, making it difficult to hear the auditor, when Mississippi Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, told people that he would end the hearing right then if they could not be quiet and respectful when speakers were talking.
“If it gets too disrespectful we will adjourn and nobody will speak,” said Kirby, the chairman of the Standing Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting and Reapportionment. “So, let’s all be very respectful of each other and honor the time. Everyone has an opinion and they’re entitled to it.”
White joked that he had been deployed with the National Guard for many months this year, so the meeting room at the Capitol full of people heckling his speech was the still the “safest” place he had been in “in a long, long time.”
The people in the room erupted in cheers and choruses of “bye” when he walked out of the room with two of his staff members as Mississippi House Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Minority Leader, told Kirby that speakers should focus on talking about redistricting, not elected officials serving in office.
When Kirby opened the hearing on Thursday, he said the Legislature is considering redrawing Mississippi’s legislative and congressional district maps as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais on April 29.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority curtailed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—a key provision which has long prevented states from enacting racially gerrymandered maps for the purpose of diluting the voting power of racial minorities. In recent years, federal courts have cited Section 2 when ordering Mississippi to create more majority-Black legislative and state Supreme Court districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act. But the Louisiana v. Callais decision scrutinizes the usage of race when drawing maps, a requirement that could roll back the gains Black voters made.
It is unknown how far redistricting will go if a special session does come together, though Republican leaders have generally praised the Callais decision. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said the ruling put “an end to years of federal overreach” in Mississippi’s redistricting matters, but Gov. Tate Reeves and other white Republicans, including Shad White, have made clear their hopes to redraw Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, Mississippi’s only majority-Black congressional district and home to Mississippi’s only Black congressman, Bennie Thompson.
Thursday’s hearing was the final of eight redistricting hearings held throughout Mississippi over the last two months.
‘Thank You, Bennie Thompson’
Jesse Otto Smith, a member of the Mississippi Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., chapter, came to the redistricting hearing because his father, born in 1926, and grandfather, born in 1891, did not have the right to vote. His great-grandfather was born into slavery in 1861 and was considered a “piece of property” that was “less than a human.” Smith’s mother grew up in Starkville but could not attend Mississippi State University because it did not accept Black students until Richard Holmes, a Black man, enrolled in 1965.
“I just heard our state auditor mention calling Bennie Thompson a terrorist,” the 74-year-old Jackson resident said. “We know what a terrorist is. Thank you, Bennie Thompson, for resurfacing our streets, (for improved) infrastructure. Thank you for healthcare and we look forward to you representing us continuously as long as you wish to.”
Attendees cheered energetically as Smith closed his speech and returned to his seat.
Mississippi House Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, said he came to speak that evening to oppose comments like White was making because the representative vehemently opposes legislative and congressional redistricting at this time. He said the Legislature should wait until after the 2030 census like it usually does.
“When you have an individual who has, as (White) said, chaired the Jan. 6 committee to his due diligence, best as a hero for our state of Mississippi, as well as the United States of America, and we’re being attacked by those words. It’s disrespectful and it’s uncalled for,” the representative said on Thursday.
Tredrick Johnson, the state president of the Mississippi Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., chapter, said talks of redistricting before the 2030 census are “trumped up” and “a scam.”
“Using Jan. 6 as a basis for redistricting is trumped up,” he said on Thursday night. “Redistricting at this time is unnecessary, wasteful and racially consequential. End this redistricting scam now.”
When Joshua Cyrus Vance of Sunflower, Mississippi, came up to the podium he said he had had another speech planned, but Shad White’s remarks changed his course.
“We have people to speak against Mr. Bennie Thompson, and we also had someone say that ‘representation matters,’ but remember, some of those folks voted for the convicted felon in the White House,” he said Thursday. “Let me be clear: I am against any redistricting. … Mississippi has not changed because there is no constitutional recourse for this. There’s only one reason that we are discussing redistricting, and you all know what it is. It’s been trumped up.”
Legislative Redistricting Committee Ended Listening Tour in Jackson
Members of the Mississippi Legislature’s joint redistricting committee have been holding hearings across the state during the past two months to hear from voters about how lawmakers should draw the state’s legislative and congressional district maps.
In 2025, U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi Sharion Aycock ordered Mississippi to redraw its 1987 state Supreme Court map to give more voting power to Black Mississippians, in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. More than a third of Mississippians are Black, but all three districts—which each elect two Mississippi Supreme Court justices—are majority-white.
Also that year, the Mississippi Legislature redrew its state House and Senate district maps to add more Black-majority districts after another court similarly ruled in 2024 that the state’s previous map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by having too few districts where Black voters could elect candidates of their choice. The new districts led to the election of Sen. Johnny DuPree, D-Hattiesberg, the first time that city has ever had a Black senator represent them in Jackson, despite the city’s population being 51% Black.
But following the Callais decision, rollbacks began. First, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pulled the order requiring Mississippi to redraw its state supreme court maps. The U.S. Supreme Court followed by reversing the 2025 order for the State to redraw its legislative maps to include more Black-majority districts. Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session in May to redistrict the state’s Supreme Court map.
Now, Black voting gains may get rolled back because of the U.S. Supreme Court Republican-appointed majority’s Callais ruling.
Lawmakers are preparing for the possibility of a special session to redraw the state’s maps, a session Reeves signaled this past June at the Neshoba County Fair. This may require legislators to gather in Jackson before this January to work on legislative redistricting because the qualifying deadline for candidates is on Feb. 1, 2027. Reeves has not confirmed the special session or when it would occur.
“That’s going to take a little bit of time to get all of that together,” he told reporters on June 25 at the Neshoba County Fair, referring to redrawing legislative, congressional and state Supreme Court district maps. “But I would not be surprised if there is a special session to deal with redistricting sometime between now and when the next legislative session begins, but we will definitely have our redistricting done before the 2027 election.”
Legislators visited Itawamba Community College in Tupelo, Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Delta State University in Cleveland, Alcorn State University in Natchez and Meridian Community College in Meridian, the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport.
The committee’s last stop was at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson on Thursday. The Mississippi Legislature’s YouTube channel broadcast all of the hearings live.
Correction: This article has been edited to correct an error in the title.
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