When people talk about the current moment in fighting for voting rights in America, too often we think it started with the most recent Supreme Court case. But in Mississippi, the struggle over Black voting rights stretches back more than 150 years.

From the Civil War to Reconstruction, the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 and Jim Crow through the Voting Rights Act and the inevitable backlash to rising Black political power that we’re still seeing today.

In this video, Mississippi policy guru Hannah Williams traces how Black political progress in Mississippi was repeatedly met with violent backlash, legal restrictions, and efforts to suppress voting power.

From the promise of Reconstruction to the 1890 Mississippi Constitution that became a blueprint for Jim Crow across the South, this history helps explain why voting rights debates remain so consequential today.

Image: Hannah Williams (courtesy).

John Roberts has been Chief Justice since 2005, but his relationship with the Voting Rights Act goes back much further than that. He came of age during the Civil Rights Movement — a preteen when the VRA passed in 1965 — and spent his early legal career in the Reagan Justice Department, where weakening Section 2 of that same law was part of his actual job description.

In the third installment of an ongoing collaboration, Mississippi policy guru Hannah Williams breaks down the upcoming case in Louisiana v. Callais. Click the image for the full video; the story continues after the photo.

Roberts wrote more than 25 memos opposing Congress’s effort to strengthen the VRA in 1982. His argument, essentially, was that requiring equitable representation for minority voters went too far.

Three decades later, he wrote the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, gutting the preclearance formula that required states with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws. His reasoning: the country had changed. The data was outdated. We didn’t need it anymore.

Now Louisiana v. Callais is in front of the court — a case that will determine whether Black voters in Louisiana are entitled to a second majority-Black district, or whether the maps drawn to dilute their power get to stand.

Phillip Callais is suing Louisiana over its new congressional maps—not because they limit Black representation, but because they increase it. The state added a second majority-Black district, even though the Deep South has long had large Black populations but disproportionately low representation in Congress.

This case centers on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting laws or systems that result in racial discrimination—even if they don’t explicitly mention race. In plain terms: if maps make it harder for a racial group to elect candidates of their choice, that’s illegal.

If the Supreme Court sides with Callais, it could weaken those protections. That would likely mean fewer majority-Black districts—and less representation—not just in Louisiana, but across the South, including Mississippi. It could also affect local elections, from city councils to school boards.

Bottom line: this case could reshape voting rights nationwide. Representation—and who gets a voice—are on the line.

In the second installment of an ongoing collaboration, Mississippi policy guru Hannah Williams breaks down the case.

Click the image for the full video.

A joint resolution that would have automatically reverted Mississippi’s Senate maps to district lines that a federal court previously struck down for diluting Black voting strength died in the Senate Rules Committee after no committee member was willing to move it forward.

The two senators whose districts would have been eliminated say, however, that the effort is likely not over.

Joint Resolution 201, filed by Sen. Jeremy England (R-Vancleave), would have amended the 2025 remedial redistricting plan to include a trigger provision: If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s congressional map violates the Constitution or is nonjusticiable, Mississippi’s current Senate districts would automatically revert to Joint Resolution 202 of the 2022 Regular Session—the maps a three-judge federal panel struck down for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The 2022 maps did not include the majority-Black districts now held by state senators Johnny DuPree and Teresa Isom.

Senate Rules Committee Chair Dean Kirby (R-Pearl) told The Mississippi Independent that the resolution died for lack of a motion after it was introduced on Sunday.

“The bill was brought up before the committee and died due to the lack of a motion,” Kirby said. “I believe the committee had several legal questions about the resolution.” Kirby added that the meeting was well attended by the press and other senators.

In addition to Kirby, members of the Senate Rules Committee are Vice Chair J. Walter Michel (R-Jackson); Dennis DeBar Jr. (R-Leakesville); Hillman Terome Frazier (D-Jackson); and Neil S. Whaley (R-Potts Camp).

England, who authored the resolution, did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Johnny DuPree (D-Hattiesburg), who won Senate District 45 with 71 percent of the vote in last fall’s court-ordered special elections, said he learned of the resolution when a reporter approached him at the Capitol. Asked if he was shocked, DuPree told The Mississippi Independent, “Yes and no. It’s been par for the course.”

DuPree called the resolution preemptive—an attempt to undo lawfully created districts before the Supreme Court has even ruled. “You don’t preemptively go and do something,” he said. “It’s, like, in hopes of it happening.” He acknowledged the resolution would put his district at risk but pushed back on the idea that it would automatically remove him from office, noting that a ruling on Louisiana’s congressional plan would not automatically apply to Mississippi’s legislative maps. “There had to be some litigation to prove that that Louisiana law applies to Mississippi,” DuPree said. Still, he conceded, the resolution “puts us at risk of having to go back to the old ’22 redistricting” and “gives them an avenue and an argument.”

Asked whether he expects another attempt, DuPree did not hesitate. “Sure. Why would I not?” he said. “This is not a session thing. This is a historical thing.” He added that the resolution could resurface in another bill before the session ends. “They seem to do things in the dark at night,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s going to stop because this one didn’t [pass].”

Sen. Teresa Isom (D-Southaven), who won Senate District 2 with 63 percent of the vote, said she learned of the resolution about an hour before it was killed. “I was very disappointed that this resolution was presented,” Isom told The Mississippi Independent, adding that she was “glad that the Senate committee members killed it before it was presented on the floor.” Isom said Senate leadership has declined to comment to her directly on the resolution.

DuPree’s and Isom’s victories in November broke the Republican supermajority in the Senate for the first time since 2019, reducing GOP seats from 36 to 34 in the 52-member chamber. Both of the new senators were sworn into office on Jan. 6, 2026.

Louisiana v. Callais was reargued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 15, 2025, and the court is widely expected to limit or eliminate Section 2’s application to redistricting. The State of Mississippi has separately appealed the three-judge panel’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

Under the Mississippi Constitution, legislative redistricting is accomplished by joint resolution and is not subject to the governor’s veto. The constitution permits redrawing state legislative lines at any time mid-decade. The 2026 session does not end until April 5.

Image: State Sen. Jeremy England (via Mississippi State Senate)

A Republican state senator filed a resolution that would rescind the election of two Black state senators if the Supreme Court guts Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The move, which failed in committee, illustrates how the pending Supreme Court decision in the Louisiana v. Callais case could be used to disempower minority voters.

Sen. Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave, filed a joint resolution Sunday that would have automatically reverted Mississippi’s Senate district maps to the lines a federal court already ruled violated the Voting Rights Act—eliminating the districts held by senators Johnny DuPree and Teresa Isom—if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the VRA in Callais.

Joint Resolution 201, which was killed in the Rules Committee the day it was filed, proposed to amend the 2025 remedial redistricting plan that a three-judge federal panel ordered after finding that the Mississippi Legislature’s 2022 maps diluted Black voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the VRA.

Video: What dismantling of Voting Rights Act could mean for you

The resolution reproduced the full text of the current court-ordered maps but added a single trigger provision at the end: If the Supreme Court issues a final decision in Callais holding that Louisiana’s congressional redistricting plan “violates the U.S. Constitution or is nonjusticiable,” then the current state Senate districts “shall be superseded” by Joint Resolution 202 of the 2022 Regular Session—the maps the court struck down.

The 2022 maps did not include the majority-Black districts in DeSoto County and the Pine Belt that DuPree and Isom now represent. Reverting to those maps would eliminate Senate District 2, won by Isom with 63 percent of the vote in DeSoto and Tunica counties, and Senate District 45, won by DuPree with 71 percent in Forrest and Lamar counties. Those victories broke the Republican supermajority in the Senate for the first time since 2019. Both senators were sworn into office on Jan. 6, 2026, less than three months ago.

Callais was reargued before the Supreme Court on October 15 and a final ruling is widely expected to limit or eliminate Section 2’s application to redistricting. The Court’s August 2025 supplemental briefing order asked parties to address whether the intentional creation of majority-minority districts violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Mississippi has separately appealed the three-judge panel’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

England’s resolution was the first legislative action to explicitly tie Mississippi’s redistricting to the outcome of Callais. Under the Mississippi Constitution, legislative redistricting is accomplished by joint resolution and is not subject to the governor’s veto. The constitution also permits redrawing state legislative lines at any time mid-decade. That the resolution was killed in Rules does not preclude the effort from being revived in the remaining days of the 2026 session, a special session, or the 2027 session that coincides with statewide elections.

On election night last November, the Mississippi Republican Party called the court-ordered districts the product of “a misapplied federal statute that has been weaponized by interest groups.”

This is a developing story that we will update with comments as we get them.

Image: State Sens. Johnny DuPree and Teresa Isom (via Facebook)

This case could fundamentally reshape how voting and representation work in America. And the consequences could be devastating for minority communities, especially Black communities.

In the first installment of an ongoing collaboration, Mississippi policy guru Hannah Williams breaks down what is likely to be a landmark decision and what it means for you.

Click the image for the full video.

Both chambers of the legislature have each passed bills to overhaul the state’s in-person absentee voting process, setting up a cross-chamber negotiation that could reshape how Mississippians cast ballots before Election Day.

Both bills seek to eliminate the longstanding ballot-envelope procedure that has governed in-person absentee voting for decades, replacing it with a machine-based tabulation system. But the two measures diverge on a critical question: How many days before an election should voters be permitted to cast their ballots?

The House bill, H.B. 447, would retain the existing 45-day in-person absentee voting window while modernizing ballot processing. The Senate’s version would compress that period to 22 days, beginning roughly three weeks before an election and continuing until noon on the Saturday before Election Day. The Senate measure would also require that in-person absentee votes be counted alongside Election Day ballots, with results announced after the polls close at 7 p.m.

State Sen. Jeremy England (R-Vancleave), the chair of the Senate Elections Committee, said he crafted the bill based on input from circuit clerks and their statewide association.

“They really want us to get rid of this absentee ballot envelope that if you go in in-person, you have to fill out your ballot,” England told a local news station over the weekend. “You put it in an envelope, sign across the flap.”

Under current law, a voter who appears at a circuit clerk’s office to vote absentee must mark a paper ballot, place it inside an official envelope, sign across the sealed flap in the presence of an attesting witness, and have the witness co-sign the envelope—a process outlined in Section 23-15-631 of the Mississippi Code. The ballot is then stored in a secure transfer case and delivered to election commissioners on Election Day, where it is opened, verified and counted separately from regular ballots.

Senate Minority Leader Derrick T. Simmons (D-Greenville) offered bipartisan support for eliminating the envelope system.

“It’s less work for all of our circuit clerks and the election commissioners who will be actually, you know, monitoring that process,” Simmons told WJTV News.

The Senate bill’s path to passage was turbulent. It initially failed on Feb. 12, 2026, by a vote of 25–24, with three senators not voting. A motion to reconsider kept the bill alive, and when it returned to the floor the following day—a deadline day for legislation originating in the Senate—it passed with 39 votes in favor and 13 against.

Both bills will now cross to the opposite chamber for consideration. As lawmakers negotiate in the coming weeks, they could merge provisions from each measure into a single bill before sending it to Gov. Tate Reeves.

The bills represent the latest chapter in a protracted effort to modernize Mississippi’s election procedures, an effort that has repeatedly stalled in the House. For three consecutive legislative sessions, England has championed early voting legislation. In 2024, his S.B. 2580 passed the Senate with bipartisan support but was killed in the House Apportionment and Elections Committee by chair Noah Sanford (R-Collins), who said circuit clerks had raised concerns about staffing and cost. In 2025, England returned with S.B. 2654, an “In-Person Early Voting Act” that would have established 15 days of no-excuse early voting. That bill passed the Senate 39–12 but was tabled in the House on a motion to reconsider.

This year’s approach marks a tactical shift. Rather than pursuing a full early voting overhaul that would replace absentee voting entirely, both chambers are moving to reform the mechanics of the existing absentee system—a potentially lower threshold for legislative consensus.

Mississippi’s restrictive approach to ballot access has deep historical roots. The state remains one of only three—alongside Alabama and New Hampshire—that does not offer some form of no-excuse early voting. Its current in-person absentee system requires voters to qualify under a limited set of criteria codified in Section 23-15-713 of the Mississippi Code: They must be over age 65, have a temporary or permanent physical disability, be required to work during polling hours on Election Day, or provide another approved excuse such as being away from their county of residence. The burden of qualification has contributed to Mississippi’s consistently low voter participation rates.

These barriers are legacies of a political architecture designed to limit democratic participation. The Mississippi Constitution of 1890 was drafted with the explicit purpose of disenfranchising Black voters—an aim that the convention’s president, Solomon Saladin Calhoon, declared without pretense. The resulting document imposed poll taxes, literacy tests and a “understanding clause” that gave white registrars unchecked discretion to reject Black applicants. Within a decade of ratification, the number of registered Black voters in the state plummeted from more than 130,000 to fewer than 1,300.

The Marshall Project has documented how those constitutional provisions set a precedent for disenfranchisement statutes adopted across the South in the decades that followed, in South Carolina (1895), Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901) and Virginia (1902).

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s—powered by organizers like Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, and the field workers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the NAACP—dismantled the most overtly racist provisions of the 1890 Constitution. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited literacy tests and authorized federal oversight of elections in states with histories of voter discrimination. But Mississippi’s election code retained a patchwork of procedural barriers to full participation. The excuse-based absentee voting system, while facially neutral, has functioned in practice as one such barrier, particularly for hourly workers, shift laborers, and voters in rural counties where the circuit clerk’s office may be the only polling location available before Election Day.

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The political dynamics surrounding this year’s legislation are worth noting. Republicans maintain control of both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature, though the GOP’s supermajority in the Senate was narrowed after Democrats gained two seats in 2025 special elections. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann presides over the Senate for his seventh session; Speaker Jason White leads the House.

England’s early voting efforts have drawn intraparty friction. After the Senate passed his 2025 early voting bill, Gov. Reeves publicly criticized England on social media, declaring that he opposed no-excuse early voting and “doesn’t care how many other states get it wrong.” England pushed back, noting that the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign spent heavily in 2024 encouraging GOP voters to cast ballots early. England has maintained that expanding ballot access does not shift partisan outcomes, pointing to the 47 other states where early voting has not altered fundamental electoral dynamics.

This year’s more narrowly tailored bills—focused on modernizing the absentee process rather than creating a new early voting framework—may prove more palatable to House leadership. But whether the two chambers can reconcile the 45-day window preferred by the House with the Senate’s 22-day proposal, and whether such a measure could survive a potential gubernatorial veto, remain open questions as the session approaches its critical deadlines.

The 2026 legislative timetable gives the opposite chambers until mid-March to act on general bills received from the other house. If the bills survive committee review and floor votes in their new chambers, a conference committee may be appointed to produce a final version.

For now, the voters of Mississippi continue to operate under the existing absentee voting system. The Secretary of State’s office notes that in-person absentee voting for the March 10, 2026, municipal primary elections is available at circuit clerk’s offices through noon on Saturday, March 7. Voters must present a valid photo identification and meet one of the statutory excuses. The ballot-envelope system remains in effect.

Whether that system survives this legislative session depends on what happens when these two bills meet in the middle.

The Mississippi Center for Justice will host an MLK Day rally and news conference on the south steps of the state capitol at 3pm on Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in support of voting rights that are currently at risk.

The event highlights a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that could severely weaken Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in voting practices or procedures. Organizers will also announce the planned introduction of “an affirmative State Voting Rights Act” to protect democracy in Mississippi.

Participating in the event alongside MCJ are the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, the state NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center and numerous other organizations.

According to MCJ, the Mississippi State Voting Rights Act will be named in honor of Robert G. Clark Jr., the first Black person elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction. The legislation would:

• Prohibit voter suppression and vote dilution

• Establish a pre-clearance system through a new, independent Mississippi Voting Rights Commission

• Strengthen protections for voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency

• Create a statewide voting and elections database and institute

• Increase protections against voter intimidation, deception and obstruction

Following the rally, participants will walk to the Two Mississippi Museums for a presentation honoring Clark. Free museum tours will be offered as the museums host their annual MLK Celebration.

The most significant Black political gains Mississippi has made in a generation were won under a law the U.S. Supreme Court may soon gut.

In November 2025, Democrats flipped two Mississippi state Senate seats in court-ordered special elections, breaking the legislature’s Republican supermajority. Former Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree won a newly drawn district in the Pine Belt. In the north, a Democrat captured a seat stretching from DeSoto County into the Delta. Both victories were made possible by redistricting ordered under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—the last major federal tool for challenging discriminatory maps.

Now, that tool is on trial. The U.S. Supreme Court justices heard reargument in October 2025 in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that began as a dispute over Louisiana’s congressional map but has evolved into something far larger: a direct challenge to whether states can create majority-minority districts to remedy vote dilution at all. A ruling is expected by June.

A decision against Section 2 would reverse the most significant Black political gains Mississippi has made since 1965. It would not merely alter the state’s political landscape—it would dismantle the legal architecture that built it.

A state shaped by the VRA

Mississippi’s relationship with the Voting Rights Act is foundational to understanding what’s at stake. Before the law’s passage in August 1965, fewer than 7 percent of eligible Black Mississippians were registered to vote. The state’s 1890 constitution had been explicitly designed to disenfranchise Black citizens through poll taxes, literacy tests and “understanding clauses” that gave white registrars arbitrary power to reject applicants.

The transformation was swift once federal enforcement arrived. By 1968, Black voter registration had risen to nearly 60 percent. By the mid-1990s, Mississippi had more Black elected officials than any other state in the nation—a direct result of VRA enforcement and Section 2 litigation that dismantled at-large voting systems designed to dilute Black political power.

That progress required constant vigilance. Section 5 of the VRA once required Mississippi and other states with histories of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing their election laws. When the Supreme Court struck down that preclearance requirement in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, Mississippi moved immediately to implement a strict voter ID law that had been awaiting federal review.

Since then, roughly 5 percent of the state’s polling places have been closed, and voter roll purges have accelerated—changes that civil rights groups say disproportionately affect Black communities. Without Section 5’s prophylactic protections, Section 2 became the last meaningful federal tool for challenging discriminatory voting practices.

What the court is considering

The Callais case arrived at the Supreme Court through a winding path. After a federal court found that Louisiana’s 2022 congressional map likely diluted Black voting strength—Black residents make up about one-third of the state’s population but were packed into a single majority-Black district out of six—the legislature drew a new map with two such districts.

A group of white plaintiffs then challenged the remedial map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. When the justices first heard the case in March 2025, it appeared to be a relatively narrow dispute about whether Louisiana had properly balanced competing legal requirements. Rather than issue a ruling, the court took the unusual step of ordering reargument on a broader question: whether the intentional creation of a majority-minority district violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

That reframing matters. The court didn’t ask whether Louisiana drew its lines sloppily. It asked whether the remedy itself—creating districts where Black voters can elect candidates of their choice—is constitutionally permissible. That’s not a technical question. It’s a frontal challenge to the VRA’s core function.

Louisiana’s position has shifted accordingly. The state initially defended its remedial map but now argues in supplemental briefs that “all race-based redistricting is unconstitutional.” The Black voters who intervened to defend the map warn that such a ruling would gut civil rights protections nationwide. In their brief, they call Section 2 “the crown jewel of civil rights legislation” and argue that it falls squarely within Congress’s constitutional authority to enforce voting rights.

Direct consequences for Mississippi

The November special elections in Mississippi offer a preview of what functional VRA enforcement can produce. The three-judge federal panel that ordered the state to redraw legislative districts found that the 2022 maps diluted Black voting strength in several regions, including DeSoto County and the Hattiesburg area. The remedial maps created opportunities for Black voters in those communities to elect candidates of their choice—opportunities they seized.

That lawsuit—Mississippi NAACP v. State Board of Election Commissioners—relied entirely on Section 2. If Callais curtails or eliminates the ability to bring such claims, future challenges would become nearly impossible to win. While Mississippi’s Black population stands at roughly 38 percent, the legislature has consistently drawn district lines that pack Black voters into a limited number of seats, heavily restricting their representation.

The impact would extend well beyond the statehouse. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, nearly half of all Section 2 cases since 1982 have challenged at-large elections at the local level—cities, counties, and school boards that used voting systems designed to prevent minority representation. Mississippi saw hundreds of such systems dismantled through Section 2 litigation over the past four decades. Without that tool, jurisdictions could return to discriminatory structures with no federal remedy available.

The longer arc

The current legal challenge fits a pattern that stretches back through Mississippi history. The methods of voter suppression have evolved—from literacy tests and poll taxes to voter ID requirements and polling place closures—but the underlying political dynamics remain remarkably consistent: When Black political power advances, legal mechanisms emerge to curtail it.

The Callais case is not unfolding in isolation. This month, the Trump administration and Louisiana officials successfully petitioned a federal judge to dismiss a 1967 school desegregation order in DeSoto Parish. It was the second such dismissal since the Justice Department began working to overturn desegregation cases it once championed, framing decades-old civil rights orders as “outdated” federal overreach. In Concordia Parish, a judge rejected a similar motion, ruling that the district must first demonstrate it has fully ended segregation. Louisiana and the Justice Department are appealing. The pattern is clear: The same administration arguing in Callais that race-conscious redistricting is unconstitutional is simultaneously dismantling federal civil rights enforcement in schools.

Expert testimony in the Mississippi redistricting case found that voting in the state remains sharply polarized by race. Analysis showed that Black candidates won state legislative elections only in majority-minority districts, with roughly 83 percent of Black voters supporting Black candidates while only about 18 percent of white voters did the same. That polarization is precisely what Section 2 was designed to address—and precisely why majority-minority districts remain necessary for Black voters to elect candidates of their choice.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed Section 2’s validity as recently as 2023 in Allen v. Milligan, an Alabama case with facts nearly identical to the Louisiana dispute. That ruling ordered Alabama to create a second majority-Black congressional district. The Court’s decision to revisit the issue so quickly in Callais—and to frame the question around whether such districts are themselves unconstitutional—signals that at least some justices are prepared to reverse course.

Watching and waiting

A decision in Callais is expected by June, though Louisiana officials have asked the Court to rule earlier given the state’s April 2026 primary schedule. Whatever the timing, the ruling will arrive as Mississippi heads into another election cycle under maps that exist only because Section 2 remained enforceable.

Civil rights advocates are preparing for multiple scenarios. A ruling that upholds Section 2 while narrowing its application could still make future litigation more difficult. A broader ruling declaring majority-minority districts unconstitutional would effectively overturn decades of precedent and invite states to redraw maps that would effectively eliminate minority representation at every level of government.

For Mississippi, where Black voter registration went from under 7 percent to more than 60 percent because of the Voting Rights Act, and where Section 2 lawsuits transformed local governments across the Delta and beyond, the stakes are not abstract. They are measured in school board seats and county supervisor races, in state legislative districts and congressional maps—in the difference between representation and exclusion.

In 1890, Mississippi’s constitutional convention set out to devise measures that would, in the words of its delegates, “enable us to maintain a home government under the control of the white people of the state.” It took 75 years and an act of Congress to undo that work. The question now before the Supreme Court is whether the law that made that undoing possible will survive to protect what it built.

Image: Pro-VRA rally before U.S. Supreme Court building under renovation (via MSN.com)