Is This the Civil Rights Moment of Our Day?

Reliving the Post Reconstruction Backlash

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Perspectives

United Methodist Focus | May 21, 2926

It is around this time each year that we celebrate the monumental Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954, that rendered segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Even as the consequential decision is acknowledged, the many steps toward resegregation, especially since 1970, cannot be ignored. However, this year attention is going to another Supreme Court decision that will likely go far in resegregating the U.S. Congress. On April 29, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map that included two majority Black districts constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. This decision was yet another court ruling undercutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act, rendering it virtually meaningless. In fact, columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote in the New York Times that this decision might facilitate “the largest reduction in Black representation at the federal and state levels since the end of Reconstruction.”

The Era Between Reconstruction and Jim Crow

After the Civil War (1861-1865), there was the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) that provided protections for the rights of Black people never seen before in the country and, when lost, would not be regained for nearly a century. Reconstruction led to more Black representation in state legislatures and Congress from the South than would occur again until the 1990s. The Jim Crow era of American apartheid in the South normally is marked from the abandonment of Reconstruction in 1877 until the mid-1960s when civil rights and voting rights were finally guaranteed nationwide.

However, I think we need an objective term for the period from Reconstruction to the full-scale implementation of Jim Crow by the Southern states—a period facilitated by Supreme Court decisions. During this era the Supreme Court issued several decisions that adopted a narrow interpretation of the 14th (1868) and 15th (1870) Amendments that had been added to protect Black people following slavery. The effect of the Court’s decisions was to limit federal efforts to enforce those protections while ceding control to white Southerners to dismantle Black political participation and civil rights. White Southerners named this era of dismantling Black freedom “Redemption.” Generations of Southern school children were taught that this was the time when the evils of Reconstruction were finally redeemed by the South, and Jim Crow laws were solidly in place.

What had followed Reconstruction was a white backlash that virtually wiped out the gains from the Civil War when a political compromise permitted states to limit Black rights to the point of virtually no political rights. We need to name the backlash era because it is occurring again. Today. Slowly but steadily, the hard won gains of the civil rights era are being eroded by political pandering to the white anxiety about becoming a racial minority in the United States. And that movement is aided by a Supreme Court apparently so out of touch with the racial dynamics of this nation’s history that they fail to see what looks obvious to many others. Otherwise, why would a series of Southern states move immediately after the decision to redo their congressional district lines with the result of eliminating people of color from their congressional delegations?

Methodism and the Voting Rights Act

The Methodist Church was intimately involved in the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Voting Rights Bill of 1965. Most observers credit the efforts of mainline Protestant denominations with some of the critical influence in securing the votes necessary for passage. As it turned out, Republican votes were essential for passage. A higher percentage of Republicans voted for both bills than did Democrats. Those working for passage came to realize that it was mainline Protestants who had connections with Republicans that other groups, such as labor groups, did not. This became the high point for mainline Protestant influence on national legislation in recent eras. In this same era, the Evangelical United Brethren were continuing their abolitionist and anti-slavery heritage by holding firm that there could be a union with The Methodist Church only if the Methodist segregated Central Jurisdiction was abolished. As many United Methodists will remember, this EUB condition, shared by many Methodists, prevailed as we voted to become the United Methodist Church.

These commitments continue today with immediate action after the Supreme Court issued its opinion: Two United Methodist agencies, the General Board of Church and Society and the General Commission on Religion and Race, issued a joint statement. “After decades of historically protected equitable political representation,” they said, “the Court’s decision exposes Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities to renewed disenfranchisement. The potential loss of districts and voices from people of color that have been meaningfully represented, is a direct threat to a fair and equitable Democracy.” They went on to say that “The Voting Rights Act is a testament to the courage of those who marched, prayed, and organized for a more just democracy. As a denomination, The United Methodist Church has been shaped by that same movement.”

The G.O.P. was for the Minority Districts They Now Are Disbanding

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law on August 6, 1965. in 1982, Congress passed an amendment prohibiting the drawing of electoral boundaries or the use of other electoral devices that result in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. In 1986, the Supreme Court in Thornburg v. Gingles concluded that “unlawful dilution of the voting strength of racial minorities may be caused by the dispersal of blacks into districts in which they constitute an ineffective minority of voters or from the concentration of blacks into districts where they constitute an excessive majority.” This led the Reagan Department of Justice to mandate in the regulations of 1987 the drawing of minority majority districts in a state whenever voter dilution was in question.

Instead of seeing this as a threat, Republican congressman Newt Gingrich saw that if people of color could be “packed” into a few districts, then the other districts in the South were more likely to elect Republicans since Southern whites were increasingly voting Republican. The result was an increase in both people of color representatives and Republican representatives. For example, in 1990, Gingrich was the only Republican in the Georgia congressional delegation. After the creation of two majority-Black districts and increased white Republican allegiance, by 1995 the Georgia delegation had eight Republicans and three Democrats. This was one factor in Republicans winning the House majority in 1994 for the first time in almost 40 years.

So in 1992, twelve new Black members of Congress from the South were elected, bringing the Black House membership to 38 from 26. For most of the twelve, they were the first Black representatives from their states since Reconstruction over 100 years before. Now the G.O.P. is rushing to undo a system that served them well in the 1990s. The results could be risky, but the intent is clear. As Carl Hulse wrote in the New York Times, “Having consolidated their power throughout the South, Republicans are now emboldened to try to eliminate the majority-minority districts, believing they can carry them without risking their strength elsewhere as Democratic-leaning minority voters are dispersed into other districts.” But Hulse also cautioned that “The G.O.P. may find it more difficult to win in more diverse districts of the kind that existed before the reshuffling of maps prompted by the Voting Rights Act.”

The Civil Rights Moment of Our Day

Some may be surprised at the level of outrage and even panic this Supreme Court action has generated. Indeed, historian Jemar Tisby responded by saying “We are living through the Civil Rights movement of our day.” He cautions Christians not to miss the historical moment in which we live. This is where the comparisons with the post-Reconstruction backlash era are so appropriate. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., noted scholar of African American studies, says that the dismantling of Reconstruction “followed a few different paths, principally in the court system and the state legislature.” A pattern now recurring? He cites the words of Frederick Douglass after the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875: “We have been, as a class, grievously wounded in the house of our friends, and this wound is too deep and too painful for ordinary measured speech.”

The map below shows the potential impact of this latest court ruling. This map developed by demographer William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution shows areas where people of color groups are represented as a share of the population larger than its share of the national population and areas where no minority is highly represented. Notice especially the concentration of Blacks in the South where over 50 percent of the Black population live. This is precisely where state legislatures are already meeting to restructure congressional districts to eliminate Black representation. They claim that the action is strictly political with no reference to race, but that is not credible. In 1967, following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Robert Clark, Jr., became the first Black lawmaker elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction. He served until 2004. His son, and successor in the legislature, said that claiming actions are political and not racial in Mississippi makes no sense where most Black voters are Democrats and most white voters are Republicans. “The two are often indistinguishable.”

Where race-ethnic minority groups are highly represented, by county

Source: William H. Frey analysis of US Census population estimates, 2018. Used by permission of the Brookings Institution.

A Christian Challenge

Christians are called to approach public issues from a different perspective than many advocacy groups. We seek not special treatment or advantage but rather the common good. We follow John Wesley’s example. He offered spiritual and religious reasons for Methodist behavior but, when he approached public officials, he cited the public interest at stake in any actions sought. He strived for what was best for all the people. United Methodist social ethicist Walter Muelder once said that “the message of Christianity should throw a searchlight on the actual facts of the existing situation and reveal the concrete consequences of political behavior.” This is a time when public officials need to see this big picture and how their actions will impact the lives of so many others. We are called today to point the searchlight.

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References

“the largest reduction….” Jamelle Bouie, “John Roberts Believes in an America That Doesn’t Exist,” New York Times, May 6, 2026.

“Having consolidated their power….” Carl Hulse, “How Minority Districts Fueled the G.O.P.’s Southern Ascendancy in Congress,” New York Times, May 10, 2026

“After decades of….” U.S. Supreme Court Denies Protection of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act

“We are living through….” Jemar Tisby, This Is the Civil Rights Movement of Our Day

“followed a few….” Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (New York: Penguin Press, 2019), 29.

“We have been,..” Frederick Douglass cited in Gates, Stoney the Road, 32.

“The two are often….” Leah Willingham, Jack Brook, Sophie Bates, Jeff Amy and Associated Press, “Black Americans Face a New Fight for Racial Representation After Justices’ Voting Rights Act Ruling,” Mississippi Free Press, May 4, 2026.

“the message of Christianity….” Walter G. Muelder, “Christian Social Witness in the Modern State,” (unpublished 1962 Colliver Lectures at the University of the Pacific), cited in J. Philip Wogaman, Protestant Faith and Religious Liberty (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967), 223.

United Methodist Focus is the Substack blog of the Rev. Dr. Lovett H. Weems, Jr., distinguished professor of church leadership emeritus at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He came to Wesley in 2003 as the founding director of the Wesley’s Lewis Center for Church Leadership after eighteen years as president of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. Previously he was a pastor in Mississippi for many years. He is the author of many books on church leadership that have had a broad appeal to a large constituency of leaders in both the public and private sectors.