My interview with Justin Jones

Friends,

Sorry to invade your inbox for a third time today but I thought you’d find this interesting and useful.

Southern white Republican legislatures are now breaking up Black districts — both because Donald Trump asked them to, and because the Supreme Court now allows them to.

The vast majority of Americans understand this is morally wrong. It’s not where the nation should be now, more than 161 years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Justin Jones, a rising star among southern Black political leaders, joins me to explain what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what we must do in response.

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As you’ll hear, Jones says that in light of the Supreme Court’s shameful decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the Tennessee legislature has already turned all its congressional districts into white-majority districts. Now, Black voters in Tennessee — who comprise nearly 30 percent of the state’s population — have no voice.

Jones describes the lengths to which the Tennessee legislature has gone to create white majority districts. “There’s a Crispy Cream in Nashville,” he explained. “There’s another just 30 minute away by car. In traveling from one to another, you now pass through 5 of Tennessee’s nine congressional districts.” That’s how absurdly gerrymandered Tennessee has become.

What to do?

First, Jones notes that the state used census maps to redistrict. Those maps identify people by race but not by political party. Jones believes this could be sufficient evidence of intent to racially gerrymander — the Supreme Court’s new test under the Voting Rights Act. Intent is incredibly difficult to prove, however.

Jones also thinks it would be appropriate for the young people of America to undertake another Freedom Summer as they did in 1964.

“It’s the moment for courage,” Jones says. “We’re fighting the same forces of the confederacy as in the Civil War. Sometimes a democracy requires disruption. … . We have to sound the alarm. The story of civil rights is being written at this moment. The question is whether you stand up now. We need a new multiracial generation of civil rights activists.”

Hope you get a chance to watch the whole interview, which runs 12 minutes 40 seconds.

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