Mississippi activists fight discriminatory redistricting practices

by Julia Tong, AsAmNews Contributor

When the city of Biloxi, Mississippi replaced its sewer system, it did so by digging up all its roads at once—to the detriment of the local Vietnamese population. As dust filled the air, elderly citizens and other vulnerable people were stricken by emphysema and other breathing conditions. Local residents had to navigate bumpy, potholed streets that damaged cars and made day-to-day travel difficult.

The Vietnamese community gathered to bring their complaints to local government. However, the city did not respond to any of their concerns.

As Daniel Le, the director of local Vietnamese advocacy group Boat People SOS, notes, this isn’t an isolated incident. The Vietnamese community has no representation at any level of government in Mississippi, leaving their concerns unheard and unresolved.

“In order for us to have a voice, to have the interest of [our] community to be at the forefront, we need to have a voice,” Le said. He added: “In order for us to affect change, we have to be at the center, we have to be in the circle when the decision is made.”

The lack of representation for people of color in Mississippi is a direct consequence of discriminatory redistricting that devalues the voting power of minority groups. A recent briefing held by Ethnic News Media brought together leaders from community groups, including OneVoice, local NAACP chapters, and Boat People SOS, to discuss the impacts of this process. As the redistricting process continues this year, these groups advocate for fairly drawn maps that will allow them the representation they deserve.

The impact of redistricting in Mississippi

Redistricting, also known as reapportionment, is when political boundaries for state, county, and municipal elections are redrawn. It typically happens every 10 years after the census is taken in order to reflect population changes. Historically, however, these maps have been strategically redrawn to favor the political party in power and white voters. This process, known as gerrymandering, has disenfranchised people of color and, recently, kept the Republican party in power.

In 2021, the majority-Republican legislature in Mississippi adopted updated state maps. However, this committee only met in public three times, for a total of 45 minutes, to convene, appoint members, and adopt criteria and maps. This process left little time for public input, as the redrawing process itself mainly occurred behind closed doors. As a result, the final maps were highly inequitable: Black voters, for instance, were concentrated in only one district, significantly devaluing their voting power.

Although state maps have already been legally passed, the fight continues on school boards, city councils, and county governments. The fight for fair representation at a local level is especially important. As NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Amir Badat notes, local redistricting has a significant affect on people’s day-to-day lives.

“When you think about your school board, when you think about your city council—those are the entities that are making decisions that will impact your child’s education, whether or not the pothole on your road is fixed or whether or not the garbage is being picked up on time,” Badat said. “And those are the policies and the issues that really really have a huge impact on people’s lives. And a lot of people don’t know that those entities are also subject to redistricting.”

Pastor Jose Rodriguez fully understood the importance of fair representation after a 2019 immigration raid devastated the Hispanic community. The mass detention of immigrants, he said, was “one of the most painful activit[ies] on a Hispanic immigrant community in history.” The raid occurred on the first day of school, he recalls: children left in the morning, only to find their parents missing when they returned. The family separations and detentions that occurred left deep scars on the local community.

Like the Vietnamese community, the Hispanic population has no representation at any level of government. Because of this, Rodriguez realized that the needs of the Hispanic community would continue to remain unheard.

“I see the need to organize and mobilize our communities. And I started to open my eyes and see we really don’t have representation here in Mississippi locally for the Hispanic communities,” Rodriguez said.

He added: “So yeah, we do need local representation on each county, each city we don’t have, beginning from the school boards and city council.”

Community efforts to fight discriminatory redistricting

The advocacy of local community organizations has been influential in changing Mississippi’s political landscape. For instance, in 2020, Boat People SOS was able to work with state governments and other local groups to correct numbers on the drastically undercounted Vietnamese population. Having accurate population counts is essential to redistricting.

“We want to have a legal representation of the Vietnamese community, whether it is in state, local or municipal position, where the voice of the Vietnamese community can be heard, where decisions are made for the interests of the Vietnamese community, not for other special interest groups,” Le said.

In Clinton, the tenth largest city in Mississippi, the local NAACP was critical to changing local government. In 2010, despite a significant growth in the Black population, the city presented a map to the Department of Justice (DOJ) claiming there was not enough growth to readjust borders. In response, the NAACP of Clinton hosted workshops and other events to involve locals in the redistricting process.

With community input, the NAACP submitted a redrawn map to the DOJ. As a result, the DOJ issued a letter of determination, forcing a change in the redistricting plan. This advocacy had a significant impact in later years: the most recent election saw the first Black alderman on the board since 1985.

“We have had some small victories, but those small victories will become big victories over the next 10 years,” said Monica McInnis, program director for OneVoice.

Meanwhile, the advocacy of OneVoice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in Gulfport was able to secure greater transparency around redistricting in Harrison County. During the reapportionment process, the Harrison County School Board had issued a notice on a Friday that the vote on new maps would occur the following Monday. This gave the community little time to review the maps and offer substantial feedback.

In response, OneVoice and the LDF submitted a letter to the school board, reminding them of their responsibilities under the 14th Amendment and the Federal Voting Rights Act, while advocating for transparency measures. In what Badat described as a “big win” for locals, the school board agreed to delay the vote.

“Through the advocacy and through the work of community the city council members understood the importance of minority representation on the city council,” Badat said. “And by having an unanimously passed map, I think that that really shows the power of this type of local advocacy. It shows that this is possible not only in Gulfport, not only in Mississippi but across the country.”

To Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, Executive Director of OneVoice, the fight was critical to securing transparency for the community, ensuring their full participation in the process.

“Even though we may not be demographers, we may not know how to draw maps, we may not have law degrees, but we want to be at those tables because it’s our children who are attending those schools. These are our taxpayer dollars at work and we will be at the table, we will have a voice,” she said.

Today, as the fight for fair redistricting continues activists still face challenges. The 2013 Supreme Court case Shelby County vs. Holder struck down the requirement that states with previous histories of discrimination submit changes to election laws, including redistricted maps, to the Department of Justice. This process had allowed activists, such as the Clinton NAACP, recourse against unfairly drawn maps. However, the Shelby decision removed that avenue, requiring communities to closely monitor and hold governments accountable for any pending decisions.

Still, though, activists are undeterred.

“In Mississippi, we know that when we fight, we win,” Lambright said. “And we start based on that premise that we’re gonna get people active, make sure that they have the tools and skills to participate effectively, that they can effectively enact social policy.”

And, as Le observes, solidarity between all organizations and communities is crucial to making this happen.

“We need to work together as a group. And we all have the same common denominators to making sure that every vote is counted, everyone is represented under the same law,” he concluded.

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