A group of Alabama organizations focused on civil rights and social justice filed a federal lawsuit Friday, claiming that Jefferson County has illegally packed Black voters and diluted the power of their vote.
Greater Birmingham Ministries, along with the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, the Metro-Birmingham Branch of the NAACP and individual voter Cara McClure alleged that the county commissioner’s office drew maps in October 2021 that intentionally pack Black voters into two minority districts, limiting their political power.
“If this lawsuit fails, we Black voters, brown voters and poor voters will have to spend another census voting in districts that were intentionally placed to ensure that we can never elect our preferred candidates in more than two of the five commission districts,” said Greater Birmingham Ministries Executive Director Scott Douglas.
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The plaintiffs are suing five county commissioners, claiming that maps intentionally dilute the power of Black voters. The lawsuit also criticizes county commissioners for keeping the process inaccessible to the public.
At the time of publishing, none of the five commissioners have replied to an email request for comment.
Districts 1 and 2 of the Jefferson County Commission are majority-Black voting districts, while districts three, four and five are majority-white voters.
The lawsuit refers to a 1985 consent decree that expanded the commission from three to five districts, creating two majority-Black voting districts. From 1931-1985, three commissioners were elected at-large and no Black person was elected during that time.
A federal lawsuit challenged that structure, creating the additional districts. Districts 1 and 2 have elected a Black candidate in every election since their creation in 1986. A Black candidate never has won an election in Districts 3, 4 or 5, which are majority-white districts.
The lawsuit claims Black voters are stripped from Districts 3, 4 and 5 and packed into Districts 1 and 2.
A map of the Jefferson County Commission Districts as of 2021, as provided by the Legal Defense Fund in their lawsuit against County Commissioners over racial gerrymandering.
At the time the consent decree went into effect, District 1 had a Black population of 65.6% and District 2 had a Black population of 66.8%. Today, District 1 has a Black population of 78.27% and District 2 has a Black population of 66.18%.
In Jefferson County overall, Black voting-age residents make up 41.46% of the population, compared to 50.42% voting-age white residents.
Advocates say that under current maps, Black and minority voters in Districts 3, 4 and 5 will not get the chance to see their preferred candidates in office.
Benard Simelton, the president of the Alabama NAACP, said he often hears people say “one person, one vote,” but he doesn’t think that’s a reality for Jefferson County voters.
He said that in states like Alabama, a vote in a majority-white district “doesn’t carry the same weight because of how people vote.”
“The way people vote in Alabama, you know, it’s near along racial lines, so there’s some crossover voters, but if you’re Black in a majority-white district, you know, you’re never going to get elected,” Simelton said. “No matter what your positions on the issues are, you’re just never going to get elected because of the color of your skin.”
The lawsuit describes Jefferson County’s “long ugly history of racial discrimination that continues to this day,” including the tenure of Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, a known opposer of the Civil Rights Movement, who served as Birmingham’s commissioner of public safety for 23 years.
The lawsuit also referenced previous court cases regarding municipality annexation and school district separation attempts as recently as 2019, as well as the closure of inpatient care at Cooper Green Mercy Hospital in 2012, which both Black Commissioners from Districts 1 and 2 opposed.
The lawsuit claimed that the Districts bear “all the typical indicia of racial predominance,” but lack the “sufficient justification” to prove it necessary, such as compliance with the Voting Rights Act.
The plaintiffs asked that an immediate and reasonable deadline be set to adopt and enact a constitutional districting plan.
The state of Alabama is also at the center of Milligan v. Merrill, a U.S. Supreme Court case alleging that the state’s only majority-Black Congressional voting district is fragmented and dilutes the votes of Black residents, along with a call for an additional majority-Black district.
Kathryn Sadasivan, the lead attorney from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for the plaintiffs, said she thinks there are many different theories describing gerrymandering and violations of the Voting Rights Act.
“I think in Alabama in particular, you know, it generally has the purpose and at the very minimum, the effect of limiting Black political opportunity and that has been played out in the Black Belt, it’s been played out in Jefferson County, it’s been played out across the state,” Sadasivan said. “I think it’s time to take the time — for elected officials to take the time to genuinely assess their compliance with federal laws that protect Black political power and Black people in general.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misidentified Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor as a former member of the Jefferson County Commission. The story has been corrected.