Most people who work on, or follow, civil rights issues in the U.S. woke up on Thursday, June 8, 2023, with a feeling of impending doom. That morning, the U.S. Supreme Court was expected to announce its ruling in the Allen v. Milligan case, which derived from a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s congressional map for diluting the voting power of Black voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), the law’s most critical remaining provision. The Court’s decision would determine whether the VRA, one of the most important laws in U.S. history, remained in place in any meaningful form. Few, if any, thought it would survive.

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