The New Jim Crow’s Next Move: Stopping Black People from Voting At All

From Map Fights to Ballot Blockades

In my last column, I explained how Louisiana’s redistricting battle became a tangled mess — with one court ordering a second majority-Black district, another calling it unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court freezing the map for the 2024 election.

That legal fight matters. Yet it also distracts us from a bigger, quieter danger: keeping Black people from voting at all. You can protect a district on paper, but if fewer of us cast ballots, that district means nothing.

An Analogy That Brings It Home

Think about a neighborhood where everyone has the right to use the community garden. For years, the garden committee locked out Black residents, claiming there wasn’t enough space. After a long fight, the rules change, and Black residents finally get their own garden plots.

Then the same committee changes the lock on the garden gate and hands out keys to only a few people — claiming it’s about “security.” They know exactly what they’re doing: making sure those new plots sit empty.

That’s what today’s voter suppression looks like. We may win fairer districts in court, but if lawmakers close polling places, purge voter rolls, or make ID requirements harder to meet, it’s like locking the gate to the garden. The right exists on paper, but it’s useless if you can’t get in.

Modern Suppression Tools

The new voter suppression doesn’t come with poll taxes or literacy tests. Instead, it works through:

• Strict voter ID laws that hit hardest for those without driver’s licenses, including many older Black voters.
• Cuts to early voting and Sunday voting, targeting “Souls to the Polls” programs run by Black churches.
• Mass voter roll purges that wrongly remove eligible voters and force them to fight to be reinstated.
• Fewer polling places in Black neighborhoods, causing long lines while other areas vote quickly.
• Felony disenfranchisement laws that strip hundreds of thousands of Black citizens of the vote long after they finish their sentences.

An Old Playbook in a New Package

These tactics come straight from the old Jim Crow playbook, even if they look different now. Lawmakers package them in cleaner language and legal arguments, but the purpose stays the same — to shrink the Black vote.

It’s the same “Jimmy” from the redistricting fights — smiling, shaking hands, talking about fairness, while working to close the door behind you.

The Supreme Court’s Shadow Role

The same Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) also ended the requirement for states with a history of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws.

After that decision, lawmakers in several states quickly passed restrictive voting laws. Since then, the Court has done little to stop them. Now, it may go further by weakening Section 2, which protects against racial discrimination in voting. That’s a one-two punch: fewer fair districts and fewer voters able to use them.

Recognizing the Threat

The first step is seeing what’s happening. When lawmakers say “election security,” ask: security for who? When they talk about “voter integrity,” ask: whose vote are they protecting, and whose are they making harder to cast?

These policies are not neutral. Lawmakers design them to target Black voters while claiming they protect fairness.

How We Fight Back

• Register early and check your registration regularly.
• Help others register, especially young voters and those who have moved.
• Vote in every election, local and national.
• Support groups that fight voter suppression in court and on the ground.
• Call out suppression when you see it — in public meetings, on social media, and in conversations.

Final Word

Discrimination changes its outfit every generation. We’ve gone from poll taxes to ID laws, from literacy tests to voter roll purges, from armed intimidation to closed polling places.

If we fail to see these moves for what they are, we will lose our voting power piece by piece. The new Jim Crow doesn’t always slam the door. Sometimes he smiles, holds it open just enough for you to see the light, then quietly turns the lock.