MEMPHIS, Tenn. — From the founding of Memphis more than two centuries ago, Poplar Ave. has served as a spine of the city, connecting urban, suburban and rural Shelby County and contributing to its growth into the hub of the mid-South region.
After last week’s redistricting push by Tennessee Republicans, the thoroughfare now serves as a boundary line that fractures the majority-Black city’s residents into three congressional seats that are likely to be held by Republicans.
More: Continuing coverage of congressional redistricting
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision that weakened a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 relating to racial discrimination, Tennessee is the first of several southern states that have rushed to redraw their congressional maps in ways that they say is purely aimed at electing more Republicans to the House.
Several Republicans NPR spoke with argue the new districts, which now stretch from Memphis into the Nashville suburbs, are actually more representative of the state’s population than packing Black voters who overwhelmingly support Democrats into a single seat.
“We have people who are upset and angry because the lines as they are drawn do exactly what we have been fighting to do in this country for years and years and years,” Maury County GOP Chair Jason Gilliam said. “I mean, it almost sounds to me like they’re asking for us to segregate based on race because they don’t want to have representation equally across the district.”
Democrats and voting rights groups have filed numerous lawsuits over the change, pointing to a long history in the South of discriminatory voting practices and an electorate where racial identity and partisan preference have long been intertwined.
“I do not buy this argument that you can look at this politically and not in terms of race,” Williamson County Democratic Party Chair Ragan Grossman said. “We are in essence saying, ‘Oh, you can’t make a district based on race if you’re Black, but guess what? You can make a district all day long based on race if you’re white!'”
While the two parties disagree on the rationale behind the redrawing, almost everyone interviewed by NPR this week across the new 9th Congressional District acknowledged that the new maps present unique geographic and cultural challenges for the voters looking for representation and the candidates seeking to be their representatives.
“Well, what’s the use of voting?”
In a conference room at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church’s Southwind Campus Monday, pastor J. Lawrence Turner said Memphis “has become a political pawn for a national agenda” that does not reflect the city’s needs.
“I think what congressional districts were formed for, the purpose was to help to represent, you know, more localized issues on the national stage,” Turner said. “To say that Tennessee needed one more Republican district ignores the fact that we’re not a completely Republican state. There are Democrats that make up a certain percentage, but also there are a great number of independents in Tennessee.”
Turner’s two church campuses are now in two different districts – the Southwind building southeast of the city is in the new 9th Congressional District, while the main church campus just off Poplar Avenue in midtown Memphis is now in the 5th district.
As head of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, Turner said his concern from a civics-based perspective is that dividing the district could dilute the voice of voters in Memphis and Shelby County.
“I think it can push this district to a place where some might feel, ‘Well, what’s the use of voting?’ ” he said. “And in this time, we’ve been still making the case that your participation in the democratic process is non-negotiable, particularly for African Americans. People have died to secure for us the right to vote. Even with the Voting Rights Act having the heart of it taken out, we still have a responsibility. It’s a sacred right that we’ve got to exercise, participate.”
Under the new lines, the city and county’s majority Black, majority Democratic population constitutes a minority in all three districts they are split across. The 5th and 9th districts start in Memphis, meander through rural Tennessee across its borders and come together in suburban Williamson County just south of Nashville, more than 200 miles away.
Republican State Sen. Brent Taylor says that’s a good thing.
“I think it’s better for the congressmen in these districts to actually represent the interests and values of Tennesseans,” Taylor said in an interview with NPR. “And that’s much better accomplished in districts that look like Tennessee rather than just a simply large urban core district like the old district 9 was.”
The Shelby County lawmaker has the backing of many of the state’s top Republicans to be that district’s next congressman, in part because of his role in other clashes between Republicans in Tennessee and Democrats in Memphis.
Wearing a “Make Memphis Matter” hat, Taylor discussed his efforts to have the state intervene in criminal justice and education policies, the recent federal law enforcement surge in Memphis and what he called “chaos” of the Democratic Party.
He also said that his experience serving in the minority party on the Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Commission means he would be well-suited to represent the district in a world where Republicans don’t have a trifecta.
“In those periods of time when we have a Democrat president, there is no doubt that a Congressman Taylor would be able to reach across the aisle, even if the Democrats take control of the House, to get things done for not only Memphis and West Tennessee, but Middle Tennessee as well,” he said.
As Taylor finished his interview with NPR, a nearby group of women playing Mahjong cheered.
“I have my own fan base cheering,” he quipped. “I don’t know what the hell they’re cheering about, but I’m going to assume it’s for [state] Senator Taylor to go to Congress.”
Pat Ford, the founder of MahJ Squad 901 and a Democrat, was happy to explain after he left.”He was leaving and he was sucking up my life and taking my air,” she said. “And I don’t appreciate him. I could hear every word he was saying. While I’m playing a peaceful game, he’s being an obnoxious boor.”
She’s one of many Democrats NPR spoke with who lament both the form and function of these changes made in the South that primarily affect Black voters, calling it “highway robbery” and “totally racist from the core.”
Republicans say it’s about party.
Three hours up the road from Memphis, at the other end of the new 9th district, Williamson County GOP Chairman Steve Hickey was asked if a new member of Congress would be able to represent his county as effectively as the Memphis area or the big rural area in between.
“You know, to be certain, that’s going to be a challenge,” he said. “They’re going to have to be responsive to everybody in that district.”
But like other Republicans, Hickey thinks that will make them a better lawmaker, so long as voters hold them accountable.
“At the end of the day, the founders of this country, they gave us the people the keys to the kingdom,” he said. “And it’s on us to determine whether somebody stays in office or whether they don’t. So I believe that being a citizen means being engaged, means being part of the system, and not just showing up to vote, but staying engaged after the fact.”
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Hickey said the current Tennessee map is a reaction to states controlled by Democrats in places like the northeast and other deep blue states that have enacted gerrymandered maps.
He also pointed out the last time Democrats drew a House map in Tennessee, Shelby County was split into thirds with a district stretched from Memphis to Williamson County – in an effort to minimize conservative-leaning seats.
“If you want to go to the gerrymandering hall of fame, that district was probably in the top two, because it was ridiculously drawn,” he said. “It was drawn by Democrats. And it was drawn that way because they wanted to try to aggregate as many Republican votes in one district as they could.”
Jason Gilliam, the chair of the Maury County GOP just south of Williamson County, said his county being split into two districts is a net positive, meaning there are two representatives able to advocate for their needs – and be accountable to more groups of people.
“Is it going to be challenging? Absolutely. Are they going to be putting a lot of miles on their cars when they’re running across their congressional districts? Absolutely,” he said. “And it’s going to make their team even more important than it has been in the past, because they’re going to be relying on their field representatives and everything to be diligent about talking to the constituents across the congressional district.
Like other Republicans who spoke to NPR, Gilliam reiterated the argument that having urban, suburban and rural voters relatively evenly mixed in a district is preferable to primarily taking race into account.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, you know, you’re going to have a complete, diverse population within that district,'” he said. “Well, that’s kind of the way we are here in America! We’re a melting pot! We’re diverse!”
Williamson County Democratic Party chair Ragan Grossman disagrees.
“We have not evolved to a place that the Republicans are trying to speak about, that this should have nothing to do with race in this country,” she said.
Grossman and several area Democrats gathered in a hotel lobby in downtown Franklin to share their perspectives on the new boundary changes that they say crosses the line.
“The cynic in me feels like money has become so important in politics,” Pete Vorholt said. “It’s expensive to run. Those donors are going to come from the wealthy part of this county. So whoever is elected is going to be beholden to the money, which is going to be the issues that are in the rich part of this county, not the Memphis area.”
“It’s not lost on me that the place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated is the spot in this state that is the most economically depressed, the place that doesn’t have all the resources that they need,” Shanera Williamson said. “And yet it was the first place that once that Supreme Court decision came down, that our state decided to gut the voters’ decisions there.”
John Haynes, a pastor running for county commission, said he believes the midterm election will actually see higher voter registration and turnout among Black voters and Democrats, in part because of the redistricting effort.
“As I’ve been out campaigning, going to different people’s houses and talking about what’s going on, people are hurting, people are scared,” he said. “But out of that hurt, out of that fear, it ought to be something that makes you rise up.”
The candidate qualifying deadline for the new district lines wraps up Friday, as several court challenges are pending.
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