They Have Stolen Our Vote. Now They Have Stolen Our Voice. The Faith Community Must Rise.
By Forrest E. Harris Sr.
April 30, 2026
On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States dealt a devastating blow to the heart of American democracy. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court’s six conservative justices effectively dismantled what remained of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—the law for which our ancestors bled, marched, and died on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a dissent that should be read from every pulpit—Black, white, brown, and every shade in between—in this nation. She wrote that the Court’s decision “eviscerates the law” and “greenlights redistricting plans that will disable minority communities—in Louisiana and across the Nation—from electing, as majority communities can, ‘representatives of their choice.'”
We need to understand what has happened and why the faith community—with the Black church as our moral compass—must lead the response.
A Simple Story That Tells the Whole Truth
Justice Kagan offered a simple example in dissent. Imagine a state shaped like a rectangle. Imagine a county in the middle shaped like a circle. In that circle, 90% of the residents are Black. In the rest of the state, 90% are White. And voting is divided along racial lines.
The circle district works. It allows Black voters to elect someone who represents their interests.
But then the state legislature decides to cut the circle into six pieces, like slicing a pie. They attach each piece to a different White district. Now, Black voters are scattered. They can still vote—but their votes no longer matter. They have no chance to elect a candidate of their choice. Their votes have been diluted. Their voices have been stolen.
That, Justice Kagan wrote, “is racial vote dilution in its most classic form.”
For forty years, the Voting Rights Act made that practice illegal. A state could not slice up a community’s voting power simply because it wanted to.
But now the Supreme Court has said it is legal.
The Court’s New Rule: Intent Is Everything, Results Mean Nothing
Here is what the majority decided. Under the new rule, a state can destroy a community’s voting power without legal consequence—as long as the state claims it was acting for “political” reasons rather than racial ones.
Let that sink in.
If a state says, “We are not trying to harm Black voters. We are just trying to protect our Republican incumbents,” the Supreme Court will not stop them. Even if the result is that Black voters lose every single representative they ever had.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) called the decision “profoundly misleading” and warned that it “blesses racially discriminatory gerrymandering” while “dismantling the legal protections for minority voters as we become a more important voice in the country’s politics.”
Justice Kagan saw this clearly. She wrote: “Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”
She called the majority’s opinion a “now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson put it even more starkly: “What the Supreme Court essentially did is destroy the most significant piece of policy legislation of the civil rights movement.”
A Brief History: Why This Law Existed
We cannot understand the weight of this decision without remembering why the Voting Rights Act was passed in the first place.
After the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment promised that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Frederick Douglass called it the nation’s “second birth.”
But that promise was a lie for nearly a century. Southern states invented endless mechanisms—poll taxes, literacy tests, character exams, convoluted registration processes—to keep Black people from voting. Louisiana, the state at the center of this case, drove the number of Black registered voters from 130,000 in 1896 to just 1,342 in 1904.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was Congress’s answer to that century of theft. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson after John Lewis and other marchers were beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Blood was spilled for that law.
And for decades, it worked. Black registration soared. Black elected officials went from a handful to thousands. The law was reauthorized by overwhelming majorities in Congress—most recently in 2006, when the Senate voted 98-0 in favor.
But the Supreme Court has now undone what Congress repeatedly affirmed.
What Comes Next: A Threat to Us All
The immediate impact of this decision will be catastrophic—not only for Black communities, but for Latino, Asian American, Indigenous, and every other community of color that depends on the Voting Rights Act for protection.
Louisiana will likely lose its second majority-Black congressional district. The state will be redrawn to have only one district where Black voters can elect a candidate of their choice—even though one-third of the state’s population is African American.
And Louisiana is just the beginning. Experts predict that this ruling could allow Republicans to gain as many as nineteen additional House seats across the South. States like South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and others will now have a green light to slice up majority-minority districts.
The League of Women Voters condemned the decision, stating: “Today’s decision will turn back decades of progress toward securing a multiracial democracy.”
Justice Kagan warned: “The Callais requirements have thus laid the groundwork for the largest reduction in minority representation since the era following Reconstruction.”
That is not hyperbole. That is history about to repeat itself.
Congressman Steven Horsford (NV-04) stated: “People fought, bled, and died for these protections. They marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They organized in church basements and community halls. Today, the Supreme Court has seemingly erased those sacrifices with a single decision. This is a moral failure this country cannot accept.”
Why the Black Church Must Lead—And Who Must Join
The Black church has always been the conscience of the nation and the defender of the voiceless. From the hush arbors of slavery to the pews of the civil rights movement, our sanctuaries have been places where resistance was planned, where hope was sustained, and where justice was preached.
But this fight is not ours alone.
The same decision that harms Black voters will harm Latino voters in Texas, Asian American voters in California, Indigenous voters in Arizona, and poor white voters in Appalachia whose voices have also been silenced by partisan gerrymandering. When the Court says that states can destroy voting power as long as they claim a “political” reason, every community that lacks political power is at risk.
The Rev. Traci Blackmon, leader of the Faith Out Loud initiative, said it best: “Solidarity is not selective.” Her group is working in fifteen Southern cities to mobilize congregations around voting rights.
The Rev. Mike McBride of the Live Free movement has been organizing “Sunday dinners” across the country—from the San Francisco Bay Area to Atlanta—to bring diverse congregations together. “It’s impossible, from the Black prophetic tradition,” he said, “to say, ‘Oh, we’re not going to respond to the pain of our immigrant loved ones,’ whether they be from Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean, because we’re all connected together.”
This is the moment for multiracial, multifaith coalition-building. The labor movement, immigrant rights organizations, environmental justice groups, and every person who believes in democracy must stand together.
What You Can Do: Organizations to Join and Support
The time for passive outrage is over. Here are specific organizations and initiatives already on the ground, fighting for our voting rights. Join them. Support them. Show up.
National Organizations Leading the Fight:
- NAACP – The NAACP has convened emergency town halls and is coordinating legal challenges. Contact your local NAACP branch to get involved in voter protection efforts.
- League of Women Voters – The League has condemned the decision and is mobilizing voters nationwide. They are also fighting proof-of-citizenship laws that create additional barriers. Join their “Unite & Rise 8.5” movement.
- MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) – MALDEF is defending Latino voting rights and has pledged to challenge discriminatory maps.
- Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law – They run the Election Protection Hotline (866-OUR-VOTE). Volunteer as a poll monitor or hotline operator.
- ACLU Voting Rights Project – The ACLU is intervening in lawsuits across the country. Sign up for their action alerts.
Faith-Based Organizing Initiatives:
- Live Free – Founded by Rev. Mike McBride, this nonprofit focuses on community violence reduction and voter engagement. They are collecting signatures for the “Love Free” pledge, which includes “showing up, taking action, and working with others to defend democracy, defeat authoritarianism, and build shared power in my community.”
- Faith Out Loud – Led by Rev. Traci Blackmon, this initiative works in fifteen Southern cities to mobilize congregations “from just the talking and believing to the actual embodying of our faith.” Find out if your city has a Faith Out Loud anchor church.
- Just People on a Zoom – Created by Rev. Cece Jones-Davis, this online space offers “confession, repentance, and accountability” across political divides. It is “not a place to bash anybody” but “a place of ‘What now?'”
- Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference – This predominantly Black faith-based organization is developing a “Moving the Needle” civic literacy curriculum for congregations and has held “Sacred Strategy” sessions on voter mobilization.
- Souls to the Polls – This faith-based voter mobilization movement operates primarily in Black churches but welcomes all congregations. Organize a Souls to the Polls event at your church.
Local and Regional Efforts:
- Power Coalition for Equity and Justice – Based in Louisiana, this coalition is fighting voter suppression at the state level.
- Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC) – Based in Detroit, this group visits barbershops and churches to register voters. “Voting is just one tool,” says founder Abdul Dosunmu, “one way that people can feel that sense of agency over their lives.”
- Voice of the Experienced (VOTE) – This Louisiana-based organization advocates for formerly incarcerated people’s voting rights.
Call Your Members of Congress:
Congressman Horsford has called for the immediate passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. This legislation would restore the protections gutted by the Supreme Court. Call your representative. Demand a vote. Do not let this bill die in committee.
The Theological Truth
Here is what the Supreme Court cannot take from us.
They can dilute our votes, but they cannot dilute our dignity.
They can slice up our districts, but they cannot slice up our spirit.
They can make it harder for us to elect representatives, but they cannot make us stop believing that God is on the side of justice.
The Rev. Traci Blackmon reminded us: “I don’t believe that the gospel is right or left. I believe the gospel is the gospel.”
Justice Kagan ended her dissent with words that should become our rallying cry:
“The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—’one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.’ It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.”
That blood was not shed in vain. The marchers did not walk across that bridge for nothing. John Lewis did not have his skull fractured so that we would sit silently while our rights were taken.
The Court has acted. Now the people must respond—across every race, every faith, every community.
We have prayed. Now we must march.
We have preached. Now we must organize.
We have trusted God. Now we must act.
Join one of the organizations listed above. Call your representative. Show up at a Sunday dinner. Take the Love Free pledge.
The vote is not a gift from the powerful. It is a right from God. And we will not let it be stolen without a fight—all of us, together, across every line that has ever divided us.
The Reverend Forrest Harris
Samuel DeWitt Proctor Board Member
President Emeritus of American Baptist College
Professor of the Practice and Director
Kelly Miller Smith Institute on Black Church Studies
Vanderbilt Divinity School
