The News is Bad, but Freedom Summer is Here--and That's Good
The authoritarian playbook is playing out across the South, as power-hungry politicians sabotage elections before our eyes. This weekend, people nationwide are organizing to say, “Hands Off Our Vote!”
Back on April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais. It’s a decision we should mention in the same disgusted breath, and treat with the same disdain, as Citizens United.
Here’s what happened:
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was the crowning legal achievement of the Civil Rights Movement. Black Americans across the South could finally walk into a polling place without facing the poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses that silenced them.
The VRA also gave communities of color the power to challenge maps that watered down their votes. Politicians have tried this for decades: dividing Black communities across multiple districts to dilute their power, or packing them into one seat to limit their influence.
Callais ended that protection. Now, map-drawers have almost unlimited cover to design districts that drain Black and Brown communities of political power.
As Justice Kagan said in her dissent, the decision “renders [the VRA] all but a dead letter.”
What it means for voters: In state after state, politicians can now draw maps that ensure Black and Brown communities elect fewer representatives, have less say in the laws that govern their lives, and have less power to hold leaders accountable — and voters and the courts will have almost no tools left to stop them.
From Bad to Worse
One day after Callais, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending the state’s congressional primary due to an “emergency.” The actual reason: Callais gave Louisiana license to gerrymander its maps, even though tens of thousands of Louisianans had already cast absentee ballots.
On May 29, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey went even further, entirely voiding the results of the May 19 primary elections in two state senate races.
Voiding the results. Not because of any alleged fraud, misconduct, or evidence that something had gone wrong in the election. Alabama simply decided those votes didn’t count anymore so it could redo the election under a map it likes better. Callais made that possible.
This Started in the South, but It Won’t Stay There
What’s happening in Alabama and Louisiana is very much a Southern story. It’s no accident that the South has always been where these fights happen first.
But the legal precedent set by Callais doesn’t stop at the Mason-Dixon line. It covers every state where there could someday be a discriminatory map. Which is every state. And the same logic they used to cancel elections in Louisiana and Alabama could now be wielded to cancel yours.
This is the authoritarian playbook applied to elections: change the rules in the middle of the game; lock in power before anyone can stop you.
Freedom Summer Is Here
In 1964, organizers from across the country went to Mississippi to register Black voters during what became known as Freedom Summer. They organized even knowing they could be beaten or killed.
Sixty-two years later, a national coalition is doing it again.
Freedom Summer 2026 launches this week with a Juneteenth Week of Action: Atlanta on June 17, Harlem on June 20, with satellite events in communities nationwide.
More than 275 organizations are involved. They’re running voter registration drives, community trainings, and direct action campaigns that run through November. Endless Freedom Summer.
Together, we’ll make sure that every vote counts. Visit freedomsummer2026.com to find an event, sign up to volunteer, or help bring Freedom Summer to your city and join the South in saying:
What happens next is up to us. Our country is strongest when all of us show up, speak out, and refuse to be intimidated. Hands off our vote!
And if you want to understand how this fits into the larger authoritarian plan — and what we can actually do about it — there’s more coming for paid subscribers. Starting tomorrow I’ll launch a new series that goes deep: the full authoritarian playbook, the ways they’re attacking elections right now, and the framework for how we fight back. Upgrade to paid to get a full authoritarianism deep-dive in your inbox each Friday.