He challenged his all-white city council in Alabama. Now he's on it

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/25/alabama-pleasant-grove-city-council-black-majority

He challenged his all-white city council in Alabama. Now he’s on it

Eric Calhoun, a Black resident who sued Pleasant Grove’s discriminatory voting system in 2018, was sworn in as council member on Monday

A few years ago, Eric Calhoun felt out of touch with his city council in Pleasant Grove, a small Alabama city of just under 10,000 people outside of Birmingham.

Calhoun, who is 71 and has lived in the city for nearly three decades, couldn’t find contact information for any of the five council members online. During the 2016 election, none of the white candidates running asked him for his vote. Voters in the city had never elected a Black person to the city council. Calhoun, like 61% of the city, is Black.

In 2018, Calhoun became a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that argued the racial makeup of the city council in Pleasant Grove was not an accident. The way the city was choosing its city council candidates made nearly impossible for a Black candidate to get elected. Essentially, the city allowed city council candidates to run citywide, instead of in districts, allowing blocs of white voters in the city to come together and defeat candidates preferred by Black voters.

…

This fall, the US supreme court will hear a hugely consequential redistricting case involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act – the part of the law that Calhoun sued Pleasant Grove under. The provision prohibits racial discrimination in voting practices, but the 6-3 conservative majority on the court has signaled deep skepticism of the provision and appears poised to narrow it.

…more…

[Scottie Mom]

1. Kicking!