After Callais, Democrats Must Bet Big on the Black-led Organizing in the South

To abandon the South now would mean turning our backs on the very people who have consistently put everything on the line for American democracy.

The Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court ruling has set the cause of voting rights back decades. Black Americans, particularly in the South, have had to wage a historic struggle against disenfranchisement in our country — and this anti-democratic decision strips crucial protections against voter suppression and discrimination. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, the consequences will likely be “far-reaching and grave,” rendering Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act “all but a dead letter.”

Protesters march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as part of the May 16 All Road Lead to the South day of action in Alabama. (Trevor Johnson for The Contrarian)

The short-term view says the only response to Callais is to offset inevitable losses in the South by focusing elsewhere — pouring our resources only into traditional “swing states.”

This would be a major political mistake. What happens in the South will inevitably reach all of us across this country. The fates of all of our communities are intertwined, and we cannot allow the Right to divide and destroy the growing pro-democracy coalition. In a moment when we must do everything in our power to overthrow authoritarians, the South is ground zero for that fight.

Black organizers in the South over the past several years have been on the frontlines battling authoritarianism. When the right came for abortion and overturned Roe v. Wade, they targeted Mississippi’s only abortion clinic. Louisiana has been the backdrop for a case that remains in the courts to restrict access to the abortion pill.

These cases and the Callais ruling did not come from nowhere. There’s a reason why the architects of right-wing political strategy have used the South as their testing grounds for attacks on our basic freedoms. Authoritarians have long sought to reverse the hard-fought victories of the civil rights movement, to undercut the Voting Rights Act, and to disenfranchise Black and Brown voters. Undermining Black political power is part of the right’s core strategy to consolidate power — white Christian nationalist power.

As Cliff Albright, LaTosha Brown, and April England-Albright, the leaders of Black Voters Matter, said in the wake of this decision, those behind it are “broadcasting that they will use every lever of power … to remake this into a nation where only white people enjoy the full privileges of citizenship.”

That means now is precisely the time for national leaders and donor networks — like the Democracy Alliance, which I lead — and other progressive leaders to double down on our commitments in the South. We must ensure that resources flow directly to Black-led organizations who have long used the organizing strategies we need to win.

That doesn’t require neglecting other critical regions or traditional battlegrounds. It means prioritizing investments in the South and Black-led organizations across the country as part of any national strategy to expand the map and build power for the long term.

Philanthropy has spectacularly failed to invest in Black leadership and political organizing in the scale required. After a bump in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, levels of support for Black-led racial justice organizations fell precipitously. A major 2025 report found that support for communities of color fell 22.2 percent from 2021 to 2023 — representing just 6.8 percent of all philanthropic giving, an even lower share than a decade earlier. Funding specifically focused on Black communities fell to 1.2 percent in 2023. We can and must do better now.

To abandon the South now would mean turning our backs on the very people who have consistently put everything on the line for American democracy. It would mean ignoring the dynamic energy that local organizers and communities are feeling in the wake of Callais.

We’ve seen before how outrage and collective anger can unleash a revitalized movement for agency and dignity. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Healthcare ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade’s federal guarantee of abortion rights, women and allies across the country were motivated to engage more than ever before in political protest and organizing to help ensure access to reproductive care. Our government failed to uphold basic rights for millions of people, so ordinary Americans stepped into the breach.

While in Alabama last month for the “All Roads Lead to the South” rally in defense of voting rights, I heard organizers and advocates describe a similar effect brewing in their communities. The national coalition of groups behind “All Roads Lead to the South” have already announced that they will hold a series of nationwide rallies and actions as part of a nationwide Freedom Summer/Fall, beginning with an upcoming Week of Action for Juneteenth.

Imagine what we can accomplish if national donors, political strategists and major institutions finally invested in local Southern political infrastructure at the scale this moment demands. At the Democracy Alliance — and with fellow donor networks such as Women Donors Network, Solidaire Action, Movement Voter Project, and Way to Win, we’re aiming to raise tens of millions of dollars to help resource groups including Black Voters Matter, Alabama Alliance, Louisiana Alliance, Align Mississippi, MS Votes Action Fund, the Mississippi State Conference NAACP, and more.

Hope, optimism, and determination in the face of repression is not naivete. Black organizers and communities across the South are prepared to do whatever it takes to secure democratic freedoms, build political power, and transform our country for the better. They need national leaders and major donors to match their courage, strategy, and resolve.

Pamela Shifman is the president of the Democracy Alliance, a major national network of political philanthropists, labor unions, and foundations.

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