The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act is disappointing, but not surprising. And as history shows, these decisions consistently and disproportionately shape the realities of the South.

In 1980, one of the earliest challenges to the Voting Rights Act emerged from Alabama in Mobile vs. Bolden, where Black residents petitioned for their voices to count through their vote in a city that was one-third Black, yet had no Black representation. A 6-3 Court opinion held: “The [15th] Amendment does not entail the right to have Negro candidates elected, but prohibits only purposefully discriminatory denial or abridgment by government of the freedom to vote ‘on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’”

In his dissent, Thurgood Marshall warned of the implications: “A plurality of the Court concludes that, in the absence of proof of intentional discrimination by the State, the right to vote provides the politically powerless with nothing more than the right to cast meaningless ballots.”

Taken together, the message was clear: the right to representation of our cultures is not enshrined in the Constitution. We are free to participate in democracy, but participation does not guarantee outcomes, equity, or an equal share of power.

And now, in 2026, amid continued challenges to race-based equity practices, the majority opinion again asserts (as it did in 2013 in Shelby vs Holder):

“(V)ast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South… As this Court has recognized, ‘things have changed dramatically’ in the decades since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.”

But the lived reality tells a more complicated story. Change has not been nearly as drastic —or as Just — as suggested, and the trajectory for Black communities in the South remains precarious. 

This moment demands action. We must actively engage in defending and preserving democratic principles, particularly fighting for voting rights amidst challenges to the democratic process. We must organize locally, support civic infrastructure, and hold institutions accountable. The promise of democracy must be more than unrepresented participation, it must include power.