Republican lawmakers across the South are moving rapidly to redraw congressional maps, dismantle Black voting districts, and reshape political power before the 2026 midterm elections, triggering a sweeping legal and civil rights battle that advocates say threatens some of the most important gains secured since passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Donald Trump’s second presidency is littered with the firing of Black leaders, the dismantling of civil rights protections, the gutting of federal jobs that helped build the Black middle class, attacks on Black history and diversity programs, and even the public circulation of racist imagery depicting America’s first Black president and first lady as apes.