A leading North Carolina civil rights voice has made his stance on the state's new U.S. Congress districts clear.
"This effort is racist. It's an attack on Black Belt counties," Bishop William Barber, who spent decades preaching at Goldsboro's Greenleaf Christian Church and founded the state's Moral Monday movement, said Thursday.
Barber also signaled that he would be part of legal action against North Carolina's new map, which swapped 10 counties between the state's 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts.
That is expected to make it easier for a Republican to win election in the 1st District, which is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat.
Barber was speaking outside of the North Carolina Legislative Building on Thursday, surrounded by dozens of people holding red signs that said things like "District 1 is our Edmund Pettus Bridge" and "We Will Not Be Diluted, Dismissed or Denied."
Republican leaders in the N.C. General Assembly announced they would redraw the state's Congressional maps last week, an effort to craft 11 safe Republican districts.
By doing so, Republicans said they are upholding the will of the state's voters by passing the new map because Donald Trump has won the state in three consecutive presidential elections.
Speaking to reporters Monday, State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said the new map was in response to a national call from the Trump Administration to add safe Republican seats ahead of the midterm elections.
"The people of North Carolina, again, on three separate occasions have voted to do that and it is something that is an appropriate thing for us to do under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people," Berger said.
Legislative Republicans released their new map proposal last Thursday. This week, the General Assembly debated the new map in committees and on the floors of both the House and the Senate. By Wednesday afternoon, it had passed.
There were no public hearings in the affected congressional districts.
More than 12,000 people submitted public comments about the new maps. Wednesday, Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said on the House floor that only a handful of those were in favor of the new map.
The new map passed without any changes.
While midterm redistricting efforts without a court order are rare, there is no prohibition on when the General Assembly can draw new congressional maps. North Carolina's State Constitution does bar the legislature from drawing new State House or State Senate seats outside of the first session after new U.S. Census results are available.
Barber pointed to a recent poll from firm Opinion Diagnostic on behalf of Common Cause NC in which 84% of the 671 North Carolinians polled said it is never acceptable for politicians to draw seats that make it easier for their party to win elections.
"Just because you're elected doesn't mean you get to run roughshod over the Constitution," Barber said.
A Voting Rights Act challenge?
This week, legislative Republicans insisted they did not use racial data when drawing the map.
Instead, they used political data, with a focus on the 2024 presidential election.
Speaking Thursday, Kat Roblez said race and political preference are "deeply linked."
"Targeting this district isn't just about politics. It's about diluting and denying the political power of Black communities in eastern North Carolina. These maps are the product of a plan to silence and dilute the power of Black Belt communities that serve as the historic core of CD-1," said Roblez, Forward Justice's senior voting rights counsel.
Remarks from Barber and other speakers Thursday signaled that any lawsuit would likely allege a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Courts have historically interpreted the landmark civil rights legislation to say that a violation occurs when a newly drawn district prevents a politically cohesive minority group from electing a candidate of its choice.
"That was the basis of the Voting Rights Act, to ensure that people — Black and brown and others who had traditionally been pushed aside and who had traditionally had tricks done on them would have the power to elect the candidates of their choice," Barber said.
But the future of the Voting Rights Act hangs in the balance, with the U.S. Supreme Courts hearing arguments last week in Louisiana v. Callais.
If the Court sides with an argument advanced by the Trump Administration's Department of Justice in that case, experts told Reuters, it could prove very difficult to win a Voting Rights Act case in places where there is significant overlap between race and political preference.
The 1st District has sent a Black Democrat to Congress in every election since 1992, when Eva Clayton won it to become North Carolina's first Black representative in Congress since the end of Reconstruction.
When Davis won the district in 2024, its Black population was about 40%. That will fall to about 32% with the new map.
"Our fundamental cry is, you cannot draw racist maps and call them fair," Barber said.
