60 years later, Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters face new threats

60 years later, Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters face new threats

Hansi Lo Wang

August 06, 2025 / 2:00 am

Otis Wilson had enough with talking and decided to go to court.

His Louisiana town of St. Francisville, north of Baton Rouge, had long elected alderpersons as at-large representatives for a single, townwide district. In places where elections are racially polarized, that kind of voting system can result in a white majority's votes drowning out the ballots of voters of color, courts have found .

"I filed a lawsuit because we had no Blacks at all on the council. And I tried to talk to the council and the mayor to work something out, and it didn't," says Wilson, a now-retired school bus driver, who led a group of other Black voters to sue St. Francisville officia