With supreme court ruling, Republicans could crack urban areas to dilute Black vote

‘When looking at a map of voting patterns in the United States, we find islands of blue surrounded by vast oceans of red.’ Composite: Javier Palma/The Guardian/Getty Images

The Voting Rights Act was a political peace compact written in John Lewis’s blood.

The Callais v Landry decision by the US supreme court, which set aside much of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, whitewashed that blood from history, along with the thousands of other Americans who fought segregationist white supremacists at lunch counters, bus stations and courthouses for political equality.