Black voters in Memphis fear diluted voice in maps

Black voters and clergy in Memphis say Tennessee's new congressional map threatens to dilute their political voice in November's US midterm elections.

Tennessee's Republican-controlled legislature redrew the state's congressional districts in May, days after the US Supreme Court weakened civil rights protections that had ensured at least one of Tennessee's nine districts remained majority Black.

The previous 9th District included majority-Black Memphis and was reliably won by Democrats. The new map splits the city among three districts stretching far into rural Tennessee.

Reverend Earle Fisher, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church and founder of the advocacy group Up The Vote 901, said many residents know “the black vote has been diluted in Memphis.” He said some voters were unsure which district they were now in.

Black clergy in Memphis, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, are stepping up voter education work. Volunteers have been going door to door in Whitehaven, a Black neighbourhood, to explain the new districts.

Reverend Lawrence Turner of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church said the former 9th District had allowed residents to choose their representative, but that the new map made that harder by joining Memphis voters with counties facing different realities.

The dispute comes as President Donald Trump's Republicans seek to retain control of Congress in the midterms.