Mississippi's 2nd district redrawn in 1966 'to distribute the Negro population of the Delta'
On Jan. 5, 1966, state Rep. Kenneth O. Williams of Clarksdale, chair of the Mississippi House Census and Apportionment Committee, introduced a bill to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The bill became House Bill 911 three days into the regular session of the legislature. The Voting Rights Act had been federal law for five months.
In 1964, three Black women—Fannie Lou Hamer of Ruleville, Annie Devine of Canton and Victoria Gray of Hattiesburg—had run for Congress under the banner of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, formed in response to the state’s regular Democratic Party having shut out Black voters. Registrars refused to certify the petitions of Hamer, Devine and Gray, so they never reached the official ballot. They ran instead in a parallel “Freedom Vote” open to anyone, which they won in a landslide.
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Hamer drew roughly 33,000 Freedom Votes against Rep. Jam…