He Spent 60 Years Building Black Political Power. He Sees a Wipeout Coming.

Press Robinson had to show he could read, before he was allowed to become the first member of his family to vote in the 1950s. In the 1970s, he filed a trailblazing lawsuit that cleared the way for him to be the first Black person elected to the city’s school board.

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Having lived the rise in Black political power across the South enabled by the VRA, Robinson worries he is now a witness to its dramatic demise after the Supreme Court sharply limited the last vestige of the landmark law often called the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. The ruling could put hundreds of minority officeholders at risk of losing their seats, and diminish opportunity for the next generation of leaders.

At 88, Robinson was on the losing side of the case, likely one of the final acts in a life of activism.

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Section 2 of the VRA has been one of the main tools of minority political empowerment, particularly in the South. The decision clears the way for Republican-controlled states to redraw districts at the local, state and federal level mostly held currently by Black and Latino Democrats.

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But sitting at his dining room table surrounded by mementos of a life in politics and community organizing on a recent day, Robinson said he felt like 60 years of work was unraveling. Discrimination is not gone, he said, and people like him need a path to county boards, statehouses and Congress to help shape policy for all of America.

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An analysis by the liberal groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter found redrawing opportunity districts could leave Louisiana with no Black members in Congress. Half of the African Americans in the state legislature could also be unseated, the report concluded.

The story could be the same across much of the South. The groups projected Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Mississippi could lose all of their Black congressional representatives. It found nearly 200 state legislative seats held by minorities could be in jeopardy.

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The NAACP Legal Defense Fund reached out to Robinson around 2022 to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to create a second Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana. He said they chose him because of his experience with the VRA lawsuit in the 1970s.

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Robinson was initially buoyed by the VRA lawsuit launched in 2022.

A federal judge ruled the state had illegally diluted the power of Black voters in Louisiana. He ordered a second Black-majority congressional district be created as a remedy.

The state legislature eventually drew one, but a group of self-described non-Black voters sued, arguing state officials relied too heavily on race to draw the map in violation of the Constitution’s provision that all people be treated equally.

The case rose to the Supreme Court, which allowed the map with two majority-Black districts to go into effect for the 2024 congressional election. Voters chose Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, for the new seat. After more legal wrangling, the non-Black voters brought the case back to the Supreme Court this term.

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Robinson said he fears another historic wipeout is coming.

“History is now repeating itself,” he said.