Journalist Emmanuel Felton talks about traveling through Louisiana’s disputed congressional district, examining the communities at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on racial gerrymandering, representation and political power.
Residents of the enclaves of District 6 carry a shared inheritance: cancer, pennies-an-hour wages, broken sewer lines, and highways aimed at their front doors. When divided into separate voting districts, those griefs were left unheard and isolated.
In every corner of the now-scuttled 6th District, Black residents tell of deep connections through Louisiana history, food, and today’s struggles. But this spring, the nation’s highest court concluded that those voters share only race, not a cohesive culture.
The Supreme Court on Monday — just five days after the court’s Callais decision — issued an order putting the ruling into effect immediately, bypassing a 32-day period that the court would have ordinarily waited before sending the judgment back to the lower courts.
