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Two years before the Voting Rights Act was passed into law, on June 12, 1963, NAACP civil rights leader Medgar Evers drove back to his home in Jackson with a T-shirt that read “Jim Crow Must Go.” His wife and children waited up past midnight for his return.
As he approached his doorstep, an assassin’s bullet took his life – and his voice.
Our state of Mississippi has had a long and bloody battle to protect the political rights of Black people. Evers was far from the only victim in that movement.
Yet, this April, the United States Supreme Court spit in the face of Evers and the millions who risked it all and gave their lives for the right to vote.
By eviscerating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that Southern states have used to launch late-decade racially gerrymandering across the South, to dismantle congressional districts and silence the voices of Black voters.
Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP, was assassinated outside his Jackson home in 1963. Credit: Courtesy of the FBIWith a single ruling, the court sparked a new Civil War. And this one is not being fought with weapons. It is being fought with maps.
Prior to the Voting Rights Act, we did not have a single Black member of the United States House of Representatives from the South, despite a majority of the Black population residing in the region.
After the law’s passage in 1965 and through enforcement in the courts, every state in the South elected Black lawmakers. The law ensured that communities of interest were consolidated, not chopped up and fractured out of political existence. The Voting Rights Act put more people at the table, allowed more people to participate in the process and provided safeguards that allowed people to advocate for the candidates of their choice.
Let’s be very clear: racial gerrymandering is voter suppression. It is discrimination. When Black communities are surgically split up into numerous districts, so that they only make up a small percentage of the vote share in each district, their voice and vote lose their weight.
Attacking Black political power as a front to seize illegitimate control over all of us is unacceptable and undemocratic. But Gov. Tate Reeves and his clan view it differently. To them, voter suppression is a game.
Immediately after the Supreme Court announced its ruling, Mississippi Republicans jumped on the opportunity to reverse Mississippi back to its confederate roots. They exploited the opportunity to push a map that would erase the only majority-Black congressional district in our state, which I have the honor to serve and represent.
Mississippi is almost 40% Black. But under Reeves’ congressional map, Black Mississippians lose their one and only seat in Congress.
To those of us who believe in democracy, it’s evident that Gov. Reeves is leading an effort to shut us out of the political process. But to him, this gerrymander would end what he calls my “reign of terror.”
I have proudly represented the 2nd Congressional District, and have among the best attendance records in the whole of Congress. I, along with the Congressional Black Caucus, have consistently voted for greater access to healthcare, resources to uplift the poor, for increased support for our schools, stronger infrastructure and for an end to Donald Trump’s authoritarian regime.
Attendees cheer in unison a voting rights rally at the Jackson Convention Center, Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayMeanwhile, under Reeves’ reign, Mississippi ranks 48th out of 50 on health. And we are second-lowest in the nation on education.
If you ask me, that’s the real reign of terror plaguing Mississippians, and Reeves knows it. He and others have become so unpopular that they are rigging the system to keep their wealthy, out-of-touch and racist cronies in control of our government.
Take Shad White for example, the state auditor and a candidate for governor. He’s called for eliminating me through racial gerrymandering, and the next day, posted a photo of his AR-15 assault rifle with the caption “lock and load.” This is how they plan to maintain power, but we cannot allow it.
These are dark times for Mississippi, the South, and the whole United States. But we need to resist these attacks with every fiber in our body. We need to take this on in full force, peacefully, united and determined.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s won – don’t forget that. Despite it being rigged against them, the People overwhelmed the political system. They marched and protested, they got laws passed, they eradicated Jim Crow and they secured representation in Congress that all Americans deserve.
My former colleague Congressman John Lewis reminded us that “democracy is not a state, it is an act.” Freedom must be defended day in and day out.
We know how to confront this. We’ve done it before, and we will hold all of those accountable who are hellbent to shut us down.
As Medgar Evers’ T-shirts so pointedly proclaimed: Jim Crow Must Go.
Bennie Thompson has represented Mississippi’s 2nd District in the U.S. House since 1993. Thompson is former chair and currently the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee. He previously served as mayor of Bolton and on the Hinds County Board of Supervisors.
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