Tennessee redistricting plan splits Memphis neighbors and reshapes midterms as other states follow

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — For 21 years, Steve Fowler and Sam Wilson have been performing together in a band on Memphis’ famous Beale Street. And for a decade, the men have been neighbors on a quiet, green avenue.

But from Thursday, they will no longer vote in the same way, even if they live opposite each other.

That’s because the Republican-controlled Tennessee Legislature redrew the Memphis congressional district, which has long enjoyed its own seat in the Democratic-leaning House of Representatives. Today, the city is divided into three Republican-leaning districts, with its majority black population divided and linked to predominantly white, rural, conservative communities along lines that branch away from the East Memphis neighborhood of Fowler and Wilson.

A line runs down the middle of the street, placing Fowler in the 8th Congressional District, which stretches hundreds of miles into middle Tennessee and through a dozen counties. Wilson is zoned for the 9th District, which stretches across most of the state’s southern border before curving to encompass the largely white and affluent suburbs of Nashville.

“I think it’s horrible,” said Fowler, who is white. “It’s not only going to be bad for black people in Memphis, but poor white people in these new districts won’t get services either. How is one of these congressmen going to serve all of these different counties?”

The shakeup was triggered by a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority that could spell the end for congressional representation of predominantly black communities in the South, like Memphis.

For 60 years, a provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act required mapmakers to prove they did not discriminate against racial minorities in the way they drew districts, often leading to political boundaries allowing some minority communities to vote for their preferred representative rather than have their vote diluted by the white majorities around them.

This rule has had the greatest effect in Southern states, where neighboring black and white communities remain sharply polarized in partisan politics.

On April 29, the justices significantly weakened that requirement, finding that the way the courts had handled the issue inappropriately introduced racial issues into redistricting, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Southern Republicans immediately jumped at the chance to redraw their maps before the November elections to eliminate as many Democratic-held, majority-minority congressional seats as possible.

The Tennessee legislature was the first in a GOP-controlled state to finalize a new map. But it is one of several Southern states — including Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina — engaged in a broader partisan redistricting contest sweeping the country.

Republicans have long complained that the Voting Rights Act prevents them from doing to majority-black Democratic districts what Democrats in states they control do to conservative-leaning white and rural areas: dispersing their voters for partisan purposes. That’s what Tennessee Republicans did in their initial 2021 congressional map for the state’s other big pool of Democrats in Nashville, where they didn’t have to carefully intervene because that city is majority white.

“Tennessee is a conservative state and our congressional delegation should reflect that,” said Republican Sen. John Stevens, who led the bill for a new map that made all nine congressional districts solidly Republican.

Wilson, the black musician from Memphis, was less upset by the carving up of his district for partisan purposes. He saw the move as another test facing the city after a wave of federal agents sent by President Donald Trump to fight crime and amid stories about Memphis’ safety from nearby suburbs and Republican state lawmakers.

“It’s a very active community. We’re going to make ends meet for our families,” Wilson said. “Memphis’ legacy is music and our civil rights history,” he said, adding that the two are closely intertwined. “Hard times mean you’re going to try to find your gift. That’s what we do here; music in Memphis is a way of life.”

The Memphis district predates the Voting Rights Act. For at least a century, long before Congress acted to protect minority voting rights, Tennessee thought it made sense for its Mississippi River metropolis to have its own U.S. House district. But since that law was passed in 1965, anyone who tried to divide the district for partisan purposes could be sued and have the cards thrown out. Today, legal experts say that’s not really a risk.

Nonetheless, Democrats and civil rights groups are suing to block the map. The symbolism is particularly acute since the city is home to the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. When the Legislature passed the new maps, Democrats and protesters shouted “Hands off Memphis!” and held up signs accusing Republicans of bringing back Jim Crow.

“Memphis is not just any city; it occupies a central place in the national story of our quest for racial justice in this country and how, over time, we have progressively won civil, electoral and economic rights for all Americans,” said Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney general who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Black citizens demonstrated, marched and died for the right to vote. »

Memphis has faced a dual story in recent years. Billions of dollars in private and federal investment have flowed into the region in recent years, but many local businesses still express concerns that the regional economy is lagging.

Residents who spoke to The Associated Press expressed concerns about safety and public services but bristled at stereotypes about rampant crime. The twin stories are often on display in the River City, where pothole-filled streets stretch from empty storefronts to mansion-adorned neighborhoods and leafy college campuses just a few blocks away.

The city has long had a contentious relationship with the rest of the state, which voted for Trump in 2024 by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.

The conservative Nashville legislature has repeatedly clashed with Memphis and accused its leaders of widespread mismanagement. The Legislature passed a law blocking numerous police overhaul efforts in Memphis that were put in place after the death of Tire Nichols, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of city officers in 2023. It passed another measure taking control of the Memphis airport board and those in other cities across the state, and gave the state attorney general, also a Republican, the power to remove Memphis’ elected district attorney.

“The state Legislature is trying to take over,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the white Democrat who still represents the city in Congress until the new lines take effect after the midterms. “And it’s absurd. Part of all of this was because it’s a majority black city.”

Thomas Goodman, a professor of politics and law at Rhodes College in Memphis, notes that the new congressional districts could lead to greater friction over who will get attention — and funding — from lawmakers. Memphis residents will soon share districts with Republican cities with very different economies, geographies and demographics. Whoever fills these congressional seats will be incentivized to pay attention to these voters and not the people of Memphis.

“This would not only deprive black Tennesseans of adequate representation,” Goodman said. “These changes also divide the city of Memphis as an entity into multiple districts, thereby removing a dedicated government agent who knows the people, who understands their concerns and can speak on their behalf and advocate for their interests and desires.”

Chris Wiley’s house sits on what was, before this week, a quiet Midtown Memphis street dotted with duplexes, tidy lawns and sports fields. Today, his district is carved up at the intersection of three congressional districts. That’s not surprising, he said, because “Tennessee is all about the dollar” rather than the residents.

“Memphis is majority black, so if you bother with that, what’s the point of even voting in Tennessee?” said Wiley, a 29-year-old sports stadium worker who is black. “Whatever the Congressional numbers are, no matter what, we’re not counting on that high a scale, anyway.”

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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and AP video journalist Sophie Bates contributed to this report.