SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
This week, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana's voting map is unconstitutional. Legal experts expect that will diminish minority representation across all levels of government. The case was about the creation of a majority-Black congressional district, and the court interpreted the Voting Rights Act in a way that weakens protections for minority voting power.
LESLIE-BURL MCLEMORE: I was amazed and upset, but I was really bewildered the hard work that we had done over the years to bring about voting rights for African Americans in the American South, in an instant, been swept away.
PFEIFFER: Leslie-Burl McLemore is an emeritus professor of political science at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Six decades ago, he was a student leader of civil rights protests that helped bring about the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Earlier today, we reached him at his home in Walls, Mississippi.
Justice Samuel Alito was part of the majority vote, and he wrote this. Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination.
The inference seems to be, there's been enough societal shift that maybe the Voting Rights Act isn't as critical anymore. How does that land with you?
MCLEMORE: Well, it doesn't land very well with me. Of course progress has been made throughout the country. But racism is still very alive and well. As one of my college roommates used to say, in the American South now, whites - some whites will smile in your face and stab you in the back. So it is not as blatant as it was when I was growing up in Mississippi, but clearly, we have a problem in this country.
PFEIFFER: I want to read you a quote from another Supreme Court justice in this ruling. Elena Kagan disagreed with the majority ruling, and she wrote, I dissent because the court's decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality and electoral opportunity. Mr. McLemore, how do you see racial equality being affected by this week's ruling?
MCLEMORE: It says, to African Americans, you are still inferior. In a state where we have 40% of the population, all of the statewide elected officials are conservative Republicans. This country really didn't become a democracy until 1965. My grandfather, who voted for the first time in 1967 - and he died one year later, but he had not voted in his entire life. So denying people the right to vote, to participate in the political system, sets back race relations but also it says something about redefining democracy.
PFEIFFER: Although Black voters and other minority voters will still be able to vote. So be a bit more specific about how you think they will be disadvantaged.
MCLEMORE: It factors Black people out of the electoral process. We have one Black Congress person in Mississippi, and this decision may very well have a negative impact on the second congressional district that he represents. So it will be difficult - in some cases, darn near impossible - to get elected because of the way the lines are drawn.
PFEIFFER: I found a bio of you in which you talked about how exhilarating it felt - that was your word, exhilarating - to feel that you could change the world. What's your current level of optimism about being able to do that?
MCLEMORE: Momentarily, this is a setback. But we have to raise our voices. We have to become as active as we were in the '50s and the '60s. This is not a time to say surrender. This is a time to say, move forward.
PFEIFFER: That may be a tall order, though, at a time when so many people on both sides are very, very disillusioned with politics.
MCLEMORE: Yes, but on the other hand, I think when people understand what this court has done, I think they will rally around this idea of protecting this democracy because we have come too far to go back, so we are not going to go back. We're going to move forward. We must, and we have to.
PFEIFFER: That is civil rights activist Leslie-Burl McLemore. He's an emeritus professor of political science at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Thank you for your time today.
MCLEMORE: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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