Gomillion Versus Lightfoot—The Right to Vote in Apartheid Alabama

Because, in 1957, the black population of Tuskegee, Alabama (5,300), far outnumbered its white population (1,400) and because the highly educated black community had made persistent and successful efforts to register as voters, the Alabama Legislature redrew the city's boundaries to exclude most of the African-American districts, effectively converting Tuskegee to a white city. Charles C. Gomillion's lawsuit, which was lost twice in lower courts, alleged that Tuskegee's black citizens had been illegally gerrymandered out of their constitutional right to vote. In 1960 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, writing, "The inescapable human effect of this ... is to despoil colored citizens, and only colored citizens, of their theretofore enjoyed voting rights." As a result of Gomillion vs. Lightfoot, the Supreme Court unanimously denied the constitutionality of redistricting voting precincts along racial lines, not only in Tuskegee but nationwide.

Bernard Taper is Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.