Cleo Fields

Rep. Cleo Fields, one of four Black representatives from Louisiana since Reconstruction, has lost his seat for the second time because of the Supreme Court’s decisions on racial gerrymandering.Allison Robbert/For The Washington Post/Getty

2026 would have been a reelection year for Rep. Cleo Fields, who represents the majority-Black 6th Congressional District in Louisiana. But in April, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that led to the dismantling of his district. This was the second time that a district Fields served was taken out from under him.

“I’ve never served a single day in Congress without a federal lawsuit looming over my head,” Fields says. In his view, the court’s ruling was an enormous blow to Black voters across the South. “They basically gutted Section 2 and basically ended the Voting Rights Act.”

The Voting Rights Act is a signature piece of legislation passed during the civil rights era of the 1960s to remove restrictions that made it difficult for African Americans to vote. But the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gutted the VRA by making it more difficult for people of color to challenge districts on the grounds that they are discriminatory.

On this week’s Reveal, we look at how the decision will affect Black voters in Louisiana and throughout the South and examine how the Roberts court borrowed arguments from Supreme Court decisions that undermined Black civil rights more than a century ago, paving the way for the Jim Crow system of segregation.

Reported by Ari Berman with Video by Anna Yeo

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