GULFPORT, Miss.—Searcy Jamison Taylor was born and raised in Mississippi and was barely 8 years old when the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. She said she watched her father and others fight for voting rights and minority representation. Taylor has been a registered voter since 1975 and now lives in Gulfport, Mississippi where she is also now fighting to protect Black voting power by speaking in opposition of legislative redistricting efforts during a public hearing in Gulfport.
“I am opposed to rejoining the maps for legislative and congressional districts outside of the standard census cycle,” Taylor said. “I’m especially opposed to the efforts because of its retaliatory and partisan effort to dilute minority representation.”
Members of the Mississippi Legislature’s Mississippi Standing Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment and Redistricting have been holding hearings across Mississippi over the past two months to hear from voters about how lawmakers should draw the state’s legislative and congressional district maps.
The push for redistricting comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April to significantly limit the protections of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from racially gerrymandering maps to diminish the voting power of Black voters. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s creation of a second majority-Black district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, narrowing Section 2’s enforcement powers and potentially setting a precedent that could roll back the gains Black voters have made.
On Sept. 22, the redistricting committee held a public hearing at 6 p.m. in Gulfport at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
“The purpose is here to give you members of the public the right to be heard.” Mississippi Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, said at the start of the hearing. “It’s an opportunity to let us hear your thoughts and your opinions because of a recent court ruling.”
The committee is made up of both House and Senate members including: Mississippi Rep. Noah Sanford, Mississippi Sen. Daniel Sparks, Mississippi Sen. Albert Butler, Mississippi Sen. Mike Thompson, Mississippi Sen. Brice Wiggins, Mississippi Rep. Rodney Hall, Mississippi Rep. Missy McGee, Mississippi Rep. Jay McKnight, Mississippi Rep. Trace Rosebud and staff counsel Ted Booth.
During the hearing, 55 people made comments. Sen. Kirby said this is most of any redistricting hearing the committee has hosted throughout the state. Each person making comments was given two minutes to speak.
‘Leave Our Maps Alone’
Sonya Williams-Barnes served as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives for nearly a decade. When she represented Mississippi House District 119 from 2012 to 2022, she got to know the people she served by name.
Williams-Barnes told the audience and the committee that she sat in their homes, worshipped in their churches, visited their schools and listened to their feedback during community meetings. She got to know her community and understand the multitude of issues that were important to them.
“This is what real representation looks like,” Barnes said. “A legislative district is more than just streets, precincts and numbers—it is a community built upon shared experiences, relationships and trust.”
Standing before the redistricting committee during the hearing in Gulfport on Sept. 22, she spoke against the committee’s redistricting efforts arguing that there is no reason to draw the lines and disrupt communities before the next census.
“We are asking you plainly—leave our maps alone,” Williams-Barnes said. “Wait until the next system and follow the regular redistricting process.”
‘Gerrymandering Districts to Uphold White Supremacy’
As a fifth-generation Mississippian and the granddaughter of William A. Geiger, an active member of the Silver Dollar KKK in Natchez, Mississippi, throughout the Civil Rights Movement, Noelle Nolan-Ryder said she knows what white supremacy in Mississippi is and how it operates.
“Black Mississippians are nearly 40% of this state, and yet only one congressional district represents them,” Nolan-Ryder said. “So I object to mid-decade redistricting as a Mississippian.”
Nolan-Ryder also called attention to Mississippi’s history of suppressing Black voters and emphasized Fannie Lou Hamer’s work to fight for voting rights for Black Americans in Mississippi.
“Fannie Lou Hamer said it best: ‘Nobody is free until everyone is free’,” Nolan-Ryder said. “And freedom in Mississippi does not look like gerrymandering districts to uphold white supremacy.”
‘No One Here Represents Me’
Janilyah Khadaran just graduated from college. She’s 25 years old, a registered voter in Harrison County and a resident that strongly opposes redistricting.
“The Civil Rights Act wasn’t just passed for vibes. Neither were the hundreds of state and federal laws that followed it,” Khadaran said. “They were passed because for generations, people in the seats of power, like you all, were given the opportunity to make decisions about communities—people who look like me, we were never a part of the conversation.”
Khadaran said that even now, as a young Black woman, she still does not feel represented.
“No one on this panel looks like me,” she said, drawing attention to the panel being majority-white, majority-male and lacking younger representation.
“We have a couple of Black representatives, and I say, ‘Hey,’ to you guys. We have one woman. We have someone who may be somewhere near my age and the rest of you look like you guys have been retired for years,” Khadaran said. “No one here represents me.”
Khadaran also questioned the speed with which the Mississippi Legislature formed the redistricting committee, urging the legislators to approach other issues such as healthcare, education and infrastructure with a similar sense of urgency.
She called on legislators to remember that the United States “was built on the backs of Africans and Latin Americans with the blood of Native Americans and the will of African Americans, Asians and other races.”
“When you guys have the power, you don’t use it correctly,” Khadaran said. “I don’t want you to redraw my maps because again, if you’re not representing me now, you’re not going to represent the other thousands of people who also represent me.”
‘Re-draw Mississippi Districts Based on Traditional Race-neutral Criteria’
Cindy Elmore, a resident of Jackson County, urged legislators to redraw Mississippi’s districts using criteria that are “fair, consistent and constitutionally-grounded.”
“One argument I’ve heard consistently from town halls that I’ve heard online is that voices will be stifled or diminished if lines are redrawn,” Elmore said. “I guess I’m naive, that argument does not resonate with me. I don’t get it.”
Monica Ladner also spoke in support of legislative redistricting, urging legislators to redraw maps that keep communities and counties together when possible and to consider public input while doing so.
“I’m asking this committee to re-draw Mississippi districts based on traditional race-neutral criteria,” Ladner said. “I don’t see color and nobody should see color.”
Monica Thomas Hearst, a registered voter in Harrison County, later responded to Ladner’s statements and the statements of others when she spoke in opposition of mid-decade redistricting, saying such comments diminish Black voters.
“I’ve heard a few say that they don’t see color. Now that statement alone troubles me because what that means is you don’t see me and many others in this room,” Hearst said. “It erases or discounts a group of people.”
‘What Would Jesus Do?’
Angela Trammel moved to Mississippi from Virginia in 2024. She described herself as a “child of God,” daughter, wife and voter when she announced her opposition to redistricting during the hearing.
“The Callais decision may have opened the legal door, but it does not require Mississippi to walk through it,” Trammel said.
She urged legislators to leave the maps in place until 2030, which is when the next U.S. Census will take place.
“You call this a listening tour,” Trammel said. “Then listen.”
She asked legislators to consider how they want to be remembered when deciding whether to move forward with redistricting.
“For those who profess faith: What would Jesus do?” Trammel questioned. “‘Would he take political power from historically excluded communities? No.”
John Whitfield, the pastor of the Morning Star Baptist Church in Gulfport, also opposed redistricting, arguing that “democracy is not supposed to be redesigned for political expediency.”
“I stand because what you are seeking to do is not only immoral, it’s against the very faith that most of you profess,” Whitfield said.
Whitfield said redistricting is about power, who keeps it and whether the people have the power, urging legislators not to redraw the maps.
“You can change the map,” Whitfield said. “But you should never and don’t think that you will change the fundamental promise that every citizen deserves a meaningful vote.”
Redistricting Hearings Across the State
Gulfport is not the only city legislators have visited to hold redistricting hearings. They also visited Itawamba Community College in Tupelo, Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Delta State University in Cleveland, Alcorn State University in Natchez, Meridian Community College in Meridian, and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. The final hearing will be held in Jackson at the New Capitol Building on Oct. 1 at 6 p.m.
In 2025, using the Voting Rights Act’s original enforcement powers, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi ordered Mississippi to redraw its Supreme Court electoral map after finding the map diluted the power of Black voters. The Mississippi Legislature redrew its state House and Senate district maps to include more Black-majority districts after another court ruled in 2024 that the previous maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
But following the Callais decision, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Aycock’s order for Mississippi to redraw its Supreme Court maps. The U.S. Supreme Court also reversed the ruling for Mississippi to create more majority-Black legislative districts. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson has ordered counties affected by the 2025 legislative order to begin reverting back to maps used in 2022.
Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black residents out of any state in the country and U.S. Census data reports over 36% of Mississippi residents identify as Black. Despite this, three of Mississippi’s four congressional districts are majority-white.
Now, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Callais ruling, gains for Black voters may get rolled back.
Gov. Tate Reeves and other white Republican lawmakers have generally praised the Callais decision and have called to redraw Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, the only majority-Black congressional district in the state represented by Mississippi’s only Black congressman, Bennie Thompson.
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