Mississippi’s political system could soon look more like 1966 than 2026, and it’s time to acknowledge the full extent of the greatest threat to the American Experiment in decades.

Within months, more than 1 million Black Mississippians could lose meaningful representation in Congress and at every level of government — not because they stopped voting, but because the U.S. Supreme Court may soon make it legal to erase their power.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 effectively ended the Jim Crow era, codifying voting rights and political representation for Black people and other marginalized races in Mississippi and other Deep South states.

All these generations later, the VRA is still the legal framework from which nearly every other battle for racial equality stems. It is the sole reason Black Mississippians have the ability to sit in Congress, in the Legislature, on city councils and on the bench. It is why federal courts have repeatedly stepped in to stop state lawmakers from drawing districts or enacting laws designed to preserve white political dominance.

Today, alarmingly, it stands on the brink of collapse. The U.S. Supreme Court, deliberating a case titled Louisiana v. Callais, appears poised to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the central provision that has protected minority voters from discriminatory maps and election systems for 60 years. In practical terms, it would remove the last major federal barrier preventing Southern states from engineering political structures that dilute Black votes.

In one fell swoop, conservative justices could open wide the door for the wholly legal return of Jim Crow-style systems and laws to Mississippi intended to keep Black voters from having a fair shake. This impending ruling would deal a devastating blow to the generations-long fight for racial and class equality in a state that arguably has never achieved it.

If the U.S. Supreme Court hands down this ruling, Mississippi’s power structure would have the permission to do four things that would transform the state’s political makeup and harken back to pre-civil rights movement days.

1) Mississippi’s lone Black-majority congressional district could disappear. Mississippi’s seat is among 27 congressional districts held by Black or Brown incumbents nationwide that Republicans could quickly redraw, according to voting rights organization Fair Fight. This effort is a priority of President Donald Trump and his administration, and it is deeply personal for Mississippi Republicans.

For generations, GOP leaders have demonized Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, a vocal Trump critic. If given the green light, they would likely erase his district overnight, redistributing its Black voters into four safe Republican seats. The result would be devastating: more than 1 million Black Mississippians — even those outside the district who consider him their congressman — would lose representation in Washington.

2) State legislative districts could be redrawn to weaken Black representation at the Capitol. Another Fair Fight analysis shows that at least 29 of Mississippi’s 60 Black-majority legislative seats could be eliminated. These districts exist largely because federal courts, enforcing the Voting Rights Act, required them. Without that oversight, they could vanish.

Black lawmakers are already largely excluded from policymaking. Redistricting without VRA protections would deepen Republican supermajorities, weaken checks on harmful legislation and reduce funding for neglected communities. Moderate GOP voices would lose what little leverage and coalitions they currently have, and radical proposals would become easier to pass.

3) Republicans could move to consolidate control of the courts. With the legislative and executive branches already secured, lawmakers could redraw judicial districts to weaken the electoral prospects of Black judges. The result could be fewer Black Mississippians on the bench and diminished confidence in the justice system.

The ultimate target would be the appellate courts. Today, only one of nine Mississippi Supreme Court justices and two of 10 Court of Appeals judges are Black — an imbalance now being challenged in federal court. That disparity could worsen under a weakened Voting Rights Act.

4) Local governments could revive Jim Crow–era voting systems. Without VRA protections, lawmakers could allow cities and counties to return to at-large elections — one of Mississippi segregationists’ most effective tools for neutralizing Black political power. Even in diverse communities, white voters often dominated citywide and countywide races, ensuring Black candidates rarely won.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act forced many local governments to adopt single-member districts that gave Black voters a fair chance to elect their own representatives. If that protection is overturned, leaders could gut representation on city councils, school boards and county boards. Over time, this would shape who gets hired as teachers and police officers, which neighborhoods receive investment and whose concerns are taken seriously by those in power.

If any of this sounds alarmist, take a close look at recent history.

Some Mississippi Republicans are already publicly testing how far they can go once federal oversight weakens. Auditor Shad White, a statewide elected official and likely 2027 gubernatorial candidate, has publicly urged his colleagues to use the Supreme Court’s impending ruling to dismantle the state’s Black congressional district.

Mississippi lawmakers have repeatedly pushed discriminatory maps. After three of the last four census cycles, federal judges have ordered Mississippi to redraw legislative districts that diluted the Black vote. As recently as two years ago, courts mandated new maps and special elections after finding clear violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The same provision that’s now under threat remains the backbone of ongoing litigation. A federal lawsuit is currently challenging whether Mississippi’s Supreme Court districts weaken Black voting power. The plaintiffs’ case rests squarely on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Civil rights leaders understand what is at stake. Even now, they are working to prepare for a legal landscape without federal protection. In January, they partnered with the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus to introduce the Robert G. Clark Jr. Voting Rights Act, named for the first Black lawmaker elected after 1965. Few expect it to survive in a Legislature controlled by white Republicans. As everyone expected, however, two versions of the bill died in committee Tuesday after Republicans declined to even take them up for a vote.

They are bracing for the worst, preparing to fight, organize and adapt if the tools of Jim Crow are once again legalized.

Two things could, in the coming days, make this column read not as a dire warning but as unfounded fear: 

1) The Supreme Court could decline to gut the Voting Rights Act. Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be the decisive vote. But his record offers little reason for optimism. As a young Reagan-era Justice Department lawyer, Roberts wrote that the VRA is “the most intrusive interference imaginable” in state and local governance. He later cast the deciding vote in the 2013 Shelby decision that dismantled federal oversight of Southern voting laws. During oral arguments last fall, he suggested Section 2 itself may be unconstitutional. Taken together, it is difficult to imagine him choosing now to preserve the law.

2) Mississippi Republicans could choose not to codify the disenfranchisement of Black voters. Supporters of this view often point to House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, both seen as relatively moderate and respectful. But neither has meaningfully empowered Black lawmakers, and both have sidelined their Black colleagues on recent votes tied directly to race. Hosemann is in his second and final term because of limits on the lieutenant governorship, and White’s political identity is a moving target. What is certain is that future leaders will remain loyal to a national party actively working to weaken the Voting Rights Act and urging states to exploit the loss of federal oversight. There is little reason to expect restraint, now or certainly later.

Across Mississippi and the South, civil rights leaders are asking themselves painful questions: How do you fight when the system itself is rebuilt to work against you? When does resistance give way to survival? Can this state endure without a federal backstop?

These are not abstract worries. They are urgent fears rooted in lived history — days that are not very far in the past. The Supreme Court’s decision will not determine whether Mississippi becomes racist again. We know racism never fully disappeared, regardless of the laws on the books.

What it will determine is whether the federal government continues to stand between vulnerable communities and those who would strip away their political voice. It will decide whether true progress and racial equity remain imperfect but possible ambitions, and whether this American experiment collapses under its own contradictions.

Sixty years ago, Mississippi’s elders had a name for a system that denied political power, economic opportunity and legal protection. They called it Jim Crow.

History is knocking again. How are we going to answer?