In a recent interview on SuperTalk Mississippi, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White endorsed the Mississippi state legislature redrawing the state’s four congressional districts to eliminate the 2nd Congressional District, which is represented by Bennie Tompson, the state’s sole Black federal representative. Speaking in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s blow to the Voting Rights Act with the Louisiana v. Callais ruling in April, he said he wanted “four safe GOP districts” to help the Republicans keep a majority in the House for the midterms and, in a rather unsubtle attempt at racial dog whistling, said that he “didn’t want Bennie Thompson and Hakeem Jeffries in charge of anything.”Â
When host Lucien Smith brought up the question of racial motivations for the redistricting, White insisted that it was “not really about race, it’s about political power.”
Given that White is trying to shield the state GOP from charges of racism, it should come as no surprise that he would deny a racial reason for redistricting. But he is wrong. Alexander Lamis titled the chapter on Mississippi in his book “The Two-Party South,” “It’s All Black and White” for good reason, referencing what he called the state’s “heavy preoccupation with race.” Lamis wrote those words in 1984, but they still hold true today in the Magnolia State. Mississippi has the largest Black population by percentage at 38% but remains the most racially polarized state when it comes to voting. In the 2020 election, 82% of white voters favored Donald Trump, while 93% of Black voters backed Joe Biden, a breakdown that ensures a Republican victory in any statewide election.
Since the Mississippi GOP has not been able to make any serious inroads with Black voters (and has not made any serious effort since Jack Reed’s loss in the 1987 gubernatorial race), redrawing the lines of the 2nd District, which owes its Black majority to the presence of the Mississippi Delta, can only be seen as way to destroy Black political power in a district the GOP has not won since 1984.
The only way the GOP could get four white-majority districts would be to split up the Delta and add the pieces to the other congressional districts. This has happened before in Mississippi, back when the Democratic Party was still the party of white supremacy in the state. Federal intervention to protect and register Black voters in the wake of Freedom Summer and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prompted Governor Paul Johnson and the all-white legislature to break up the Delta District, the unofficial name for the 3rd Congressional District, creating three east-west districts the width of the state, combining the geographically differing regions of the Delta and the hill country.
This was done only to fracture the emerging potential of a Black electorate, as the legislature had first created the Delta District in 1882 and had always maintained it according to that region’s geographic borders. Despite court challenges from civil rights groups, the Delta remained, to use the parlance of political scientists, “cracked” into pieces to dilute the Black vote and then “stacked” onto white-majority districts until 1982. The Delta District was only restored after the 1980 Census, with the Voting Rights Act’s renewal on the horizon and a significant number of Black state legislators now in Jackson after the 1979 state elections.
The only way four white-majority “safe” GOP districts could be realized today is through a similar map, since the Supreme Court requires closely equal populations for each district. The breakup of the Delta District can only be due to race and the desire to dilute the Black vote, for no other reason really can explain why areas as geographically diverse as the hill country and piney woods of the east and south of the state should be merged with the flat alluvial Delta plain.
Of course, White says that his proposal ends the idea that only whites can represent whites, and Blacks can only represent Blacks, something he said the courts had forced on the southern states.
But he then contradicts himself by mentioning the Tennessee State Legislature’s cracking of the Memphis congressional district, a district that, like the Delta District, long predates the Voting Rights Act. That majority-Black district has been represented by a white Democrat, Steve Cohen, showing that even Black-majority areas can see themselves represented by whites.
White believes that redrawing the district in Mississippi will bring forth “highly electable” Black conservatives. The “highly electable” part is dubious. Mississippi’s voting patterns are the most racially polarized in the country, with even conservative Black Republicans making few inroads in the state.
No Black person has held a statewide office since Reconstruction, and Black Republicans in the modern era have fared no better. In 1995, Bill Jordan, a Black attorney from Jackson, only managed 23.6% of the vote against white Democrat Mike Moore in the attorney general’s race, even though white Republican Kirk Fordice won reelection as governor with 55% of the vote. That indicated that even many white conservative voters in Mississippi did not support a Black Republican.
Not until 2023 did a majority-white district elect a Black Republican, when Rodney Hall won a state House seat in an 81% white district in Desoto County. But that is an affluent suburban district of the greater Memphis area, not a rural district of conservative whites. It remains to be seen if the Mississippi GOP’s base of conservative whites in rural areas and small towns will support a Black Republican. So far, they have not.
White also has run up against another unlikely opponent of redistricting: white Republicans themselves. In 2022, Republicans in the legislature rejected a proposal from Thompson to place Hinds County and south Madison County in the 3rd District, a move that would have made the 2nd District less Black and the 3rd District more competitive. That fear that pieces of the Delta District could potentially defeat a GOP incumbent in one of the other House districts likely prompted Gov. Tate Reeves to cancel the special legislative session for redistricting he had earlier called, defying heavy pressure from President Trump. The three GOP House incumbents were likely in no mood to see their districts become more competitive, either.Â
So not all Mississippi Republicans share Shad White’s enthusiasm for redistricting, especially in a year when Trump’s approval rating is dropping even in their ruby-red districts. The Delta District is safe for now from efforts by white Republicans to destroy Black political power. For how long it will be safe is the less certain answer.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
