Veteran Louisiana Activist Press Robinson Foresees Black Political Losses After Supreme Court Ruling
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Veteran Louisiana Activist Press Robinson Foresees Black Political Losses After Supreme Court Ruling
- Black voters in Louisiana faced literacy tests and other barriers until the 1965 Voting Rights Act them, enabling figures like Press Robinson to vote for the first time in the1950s.
- the 1970s, filed a landmark lawsuit that made him the first Black person to his local school board, but he was on the losing end of the Supreme Court's June 2023 decision in Allen v. Milligan weakening Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
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Press Robinson, a 90-year-old civil rights pioneer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has dedicated six decades to expanding Black political influence in the South, from overcoming voter suppression in the Jim Crow era to breaking barriers in local elections.
Born into segregation, Robinson couldn’t vote until the mid-1950s, when he passed a required literacy test—the first in his family to do so. That experience fueled his activism. By the 1970s, he challenged discriminatory election practices head-on, filing a federal lawsuit that paved the way for his historic 1974 election as the first Black member of the St. Gabriel school board in Iberville Parish. His victory symbolized a broader shift after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned literacy tests and other tactics that had disenfranchised Black Southerners for generations.
Robinson’s efforts extended to mentoring candidates and pushing for fair districting to boost Black representation. Louisiana, with its large Black population—about 33% of residents—saw gains in state legislature and congressional seats post-1965, including the creation of majority-Black districts.
But optimism has turned to alarm. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in June 2023 in Allen v. Milligan raised the legal bar for proving vote dilution under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, rejecting Alabama’s congressional map for diluting Black voting power. Louisiana’s own maps, redrawn after the 2020 Census, now face scrutiny. A federal court in 2024 ordered a second majority-Black congressional district, but appeals loom, and Robinson predicts a “wipeout” for Black candidates in upcoming elections, citing weakened protections amid partisan gerrymandering.
From Baton Rouge, Robinson warns that without robust Voting Rights Act enforcement, decades of progress—Black voter registration surging from under 30% in 1964 to over 70% today—could erode, especially as state legislatures draw maps favoring Republicans. His story underscores the fragility of gains won through litigation and turnout, as 2026 midterm battles approach.