From Tuskegee to Texas: The Long Shadow of Gomillion v. Lightfoot - Ongoing Contributor Harold Michael Harvey Points to History Repeating Itself in Texas Re Voting Rights!

 

Dr. Charles G. Gomillion, Tuskegee Institute Professor and Administrator from 1928 to 1970., Photo Tuskegee Archives

In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled that a map could be unconstitutional if its sole purpose were to silence Black voters. Charles Gomillion, a professor at Tuskegee Institute, had watched as Alabama’s legislature redrew the city’s boundaries into a 28-sided figure—an act of cartographic violence designed to excise nearly all Black residents from the voting rolls surgically. Gomillion refused to accept this as mere politics. He saw it for what it was: a betrayal of democratic promise. In 1956, Gomillion, as President of the Tuskegee Civic League, filed a lawsuit to contest this electoral map. It took this case four years to wind its way to the Supreme Court.

Today, in Texas, we are witnessing a similar betrayal. District lines are being drawn not to reflect communities, but to fracture them. The tactics are more sophisticated, the language more coded, but the intent remains chillingly familiar: dilute the voting strength of those whose voices threaten entrenched power. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who is the target of a political scheme designed to eliminate X-number of people from participating in the process of electing the congressional delegation of Texas.

Gomillion was more than a plaintiff—he was a civic architect. As dean of Tuskegee’s graduate school, he organized voter registration drives, led boycotts against white-owned businesses, and cultivated a generation of students who understood that democracy must be defended, not assumed.

He knew that maps are not neutral. They are declarations of who belongs, who governs, and who gets heard. When the Alabama legislature carved out Tuskegee’s Black population from the city’s voting district, Gomillion didn’t just challenge the lines—he challenged the logic behind them.

Gomillion v. Lightfoot reached the Supreme Court after lower courts upheld Alabama’s redistricting, citing state authority. But the high court reversed those rulings, declaring that the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits states from drawing lines that intentionally disenfranchise voters based on race.

Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote:

“States may not…deprive any citizen of the right to vote because of his race.”

In law school, fourteen years later, I gleefully raised my hand to brief this case. After all, I had met Dr. Gomillion when I was a student at Tuskegee Institute, a few years after he had retired, and he had come on campus to drop off his copies of the Parisian Review and the New Yorker in the student center lounge. He was tall and stately, his eyes penetrated mine, his words buried in my soul till this very day. “The sky is the limit, young man,” he said, then added, “Your people need you.”

It was a landmark decision—one that affirmed the Constitution’s role in protecting against racial gerrymandering. But it also left open a question: What happens when disenfranchisement is cloaked in partisanship rather than race?

Fast forward to 2025. In Texas, redistricting maps

have been engineered to give Republicans five new congressional seats, including placing in jeopardy the congressional seat of Rep. Al Green, a Tuskegee University alum. The methods— “packing” Democratic voters into a few districts and “cracking” others across multiple conservative strongholds—are textbook gerrymandering. But because the lines target party affiliation rather than race, they skirt the protections Gomillion helped establish.

The consequences are profound. Communities of color, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, find their influence diluted. Urban centers are split and stretched into rural districts. And the rhythm of representation—the syncopated beat of diverse voices rising in chorus—is muffled.

Gomillion’s victory was not just legal—it was moral. It affirmed that democracy cannot be contorted into a tool of exclusion. Texas now stands at a similar crossroads. The question is not whether the maps are legal, but whether they are just. Whether they honor the spirit of representation or betray it.

We must ask: What do these lines remember? What do they forget? And who gets to draw them?

History doesn’t repeat—it syncopates. The beat of disenfranchisement returns in new forms, but so does the counter-rhythm of resistance. Charles Gomillion’s legacy reminds us that maps can be redrawn, but memory cannot be erased. From Tuskegee to Texas, the struggle continues—not just to vote, but to serve, and be counted.

See Also Tuskegee Airmen Review... from 2008

This article was first published on Substack

Harold’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Support our Black and All Non-White Brothers and Sisters ALL have the right to Vote! And Be Free!

Gabby