Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960)

"The Fifteenth Amendment forbids a State from passing any law
which deprives a citizen of his vote because of his race."

Alabama, 1957. The State Legislature redraws the city of Tuskegee. It had been a square; now the city is a strangely shaped twenty-eight-sided polygon. There had been 400 black voters in Tuskegee. Now there are five. Yet not one white voter is lost by Tuskegee's new borders. The city's former black citizens believe they've been cut out of their constitutional rights.

A unanimous Supreme Court agrees. "The Fifteenth Amendment forbids a State from passing any law which deprives a citizen of his vote because of his race." Justice Frankfurter writes: "When a State exercises power wholly within the domain of state interest, it is insulated from federal judicial review. But such insulation is not carried over when state power is used as an instrument for circumventing a federally protected right."

For more...

Electoral Districts History Learning Site

Before the Voting Rights Act U.S. Department of Justice

Introduction To Federal Voting Rights Laws

Tuskegee Civic Association Africana Online

Fred Gray FredGray.net

Civil rights attorney who argued the case

AMENDMENT 15 The Right to Vote Shall Not Be Denied

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. [^].

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