Bennie Thompson

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson addressed concerns over Republican-led efforts to redraw his congressional district.

Thompson and other Democratic leaders held a town hall in Jackson to discuss the potential impact of redistricting on Black voters.

Some state politicians have called for dividing Thompson's majority-Black district to create four Republican seats in Congress.

Legal experts and academics discussed the challenges to voting rights following recent Supreme Court decisions.

In his first appearance in his home state since Mississippi's top politicians began calling for his district to be redrawn, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson told pews of Jackson residents that Black voters have always made their way through attacks from Republicans.

On May 18 at a town hall on redistricting, Thompson recounted the story of the first Black elected official he met as a young man when he went to Mound Bayou, his wife's hometown.

"For the first time in my life, I saw a mayor who looked like me. I saw a school superintendent of education who looked like me," Thompson said. "I saw a chief of police who looked like me. I thought, this has to be heaven. They said, 'No, this is just a town that was founded by slaves who decided to determine their own destiny.'"

If it hadn't been for the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Thompson said, Mound Bayou would still have the state's only Black elected officials. Now that the Supreme Court has "gutted" one of the sections of that federal law, Thompson warned, people that want to "do harm" to Black voters "see this as an opportunity to do it."

Thompson joined three Democratic state legislators from Jackson, Sen. Sollie Norwood, Rep. Zakiya Summers and Rep. Grace Butler-Washington, for a town hall at Pearl Street AME Church to explain what redistricting is and what it could mean in Mississippi.

Thus far, Republican state leaders have mostly focused their redistricting attention on Thompson's district in the U.S. House, a seat which he has occupied for 33 years.

Gov. Tate Reeves, who called for and quickly canceled a special session on redistricting, described Thompson's tenure in Congress as a "reign of terror."

"To advocate for what the law says you are entitled to as a Black person is a reign of terror?" Thompson asked rhetorically at the town hall. "Seniority used to be a positive. Now because the Black guy got the seniority, it's a negative."

Several state politicians have called for Thompson's district, which is approximately 62% Black, to be divided in a manner that gives the state four Republican seats in Congress.

Many people have argued that the district is shaped unfairly and represents an unconstitutional race-based gerrymander, according to the Supreme Court's recent decision.

"The Republican Legislature approved this district," Thompson said. "The district I wanted was a different district, but they gave me this district. Now they're saying the district they gave me is a gerrymandered district. I know what a wordsmith is, but I know what a lie is, too."

Thompson's congressional district is not the only one that has been targeted by Republican lawmakers. Some, including Sen. Michael McLendon, have pointed to the two majority-Black state Senate districts that were created last year as similarly unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned on May 19 the ruling that created those districts, along with another in the state House, sending the case back to the lower courts. But all hope is not lost in those cases or the similar state Supreme Court challenge, said Joshua Tom, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union branch in Mississippi.

"The Supreme Court said if the line drawers can say, 'We did this because of party,' then they get a free pass… You have to somehow prove that it was actually done because of race," Tom said. "I will say, the Mississippi Supreme Court is a nonpartisan body, and the districts have not been redrawn since 1987… Under the specific characteristics of that case, which we are arguing soon for Judge Aycock, we think we can still win."

Despite potential legal pathways, Tom said, the voting rights landscape now is worse that it looked 40 years ago.

D'Andra Orey, a professor of political science at Jackson State University and expert on Mississippi's voting rights history, echoed Tom's sentiment and Thompson's statements on the power of Black Mississippians.

"We've been able to outsmart white supremacists since the 1960s," Orey said. "If we go back to the 1966 district, then what do we call the folks who draw up that district? In 1966, they were called white supremacists. We have to call them what they are."