Michigan Redistricting: Court Finds New Detroit Maps Better for Black Voters

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

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Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

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March 28, 2024

By Lauren Gibbons, Bridge Michigan

An attendee at a redistricting public hearing in Detroit considers several options for new metro Detroit state House districts. Seven existing House districts were scrapped by a federal court, where judges determined the commission improperly used racial data to draw maps. (Bridge photo by Lauren Gibbons)

New Detroit-area state House districts redrawn by Michigan’s citizen redistricting commission are fairer to Black voters and will take effect in time for this year’s elections, a federal court ruled Wednesday.

In a new opinion, a federal three-judge panel that rebuked the commission’s original work in several metro Detroit political districts determined there was “no basis to reject” the commission’s revised map, dubbed “Motown Sound FC E1.”

The new map “departs significantly” from the original plan, the court found, adhering more closely to county and municipal boundaries and increasing the number of majority-Black districts.

[…]

Commissioners aren’t done with their work yet — six state Senate districts also thrown out by the court will be dealt with later this spring.

Read the full article.

Learn about Bernard Lafayette and his fight for Black voting rights.

Read about the current redistricting efforts in Louisiana and the possible impact on Black voters.

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