After a century and a half of neglect by white-dominated governments,
hope is rising across this Atlantic Coast city.

Black residents of Florida city see hope in new, equitable voting map

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Rhonda Sonnenberg     Read the full piece here

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Friend,

Anyone looking for the perfect model of urban blight need only look at
the Black neighborhoods of Jacksonville, Florida.

Roads and sidewalks - if they are even there - need
repairs. School buildings are old. Housing is decrepit.

But after a century and a half of neglect by white-dominated
governments, hope is rising across this Atlantic Coast city.

On May 9, the Jacksonville City Council agreed to settle a federal
lawsuit

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 charging that the city has long deployed an unconstitutional,
racially gerrymandered

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voting district map that denied Black voters fair representation in
city council and school board elections.

The judge repeatedly rejected the city's defense of its proposed
alternative map and ordered it to use a new, fairer district map,
offered by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The new map created a
fifth district in which Black voters can elect preferred candidates.

One week later, in the first elections since the City Council agreed
to the settlement, Black residents exercised their newfound political
power in this fast-growing city, the 11th largest in the U.S.

"The court-ordered map, as part of the settlement, appears to
have provided Black voters the opportunity to elect preferred
candidates," said Jack Genberg, senior staff attorney for voting
rights at the SPLC.

"Community members were complaining about a liquor store set to
be located next to a school. Now Black voters will have the chance to
determine the actions their government takes."

The old map artificially "packed" Black voters into four
districts to diminish their political influence on other districts and
ensure white majorities on the governing bodies. With generations of
white political leaders assured of Black political impotence, their
flagrant neglect of Black neighborhoods continued as standard
operating procedure.

"[The ruling] means that we now have rare, political power as
the electors," said Rosemary McCoy, co-founder of the Harriet
Tubman Freedom Fighters
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, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to register
returning citizens and new and young voters in communities of color.

Read More

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In solidarity,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

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The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.

Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
justice and equity in courts and combat white supremacy?

 

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