At-large election rules diluted black voting power until single-member districts replaced them

Evidence

Uncle Billy also initiated a campaign to reform at-large elections for the Sumter County Council. At that time, county council elections were county-wide, meaning that the black vote was diluted when combined with the white vote from the entire county. As a result, a black candidate had virtually no chance of getting elected. But in a single-member district, where black voters might comprise a majority, a black candidate had a good chance of getting elected. Uncle Billy served as the “legal engineer” of an eight-year battle that resulted in single-member districts for Sumter County Council. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 42

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete mechanism of vote dilution — the structural harm the book’s remedy addresses.
• XREF: connects to: Literacy tests and poll taxes were written to let local officials disenfranchise black voters — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2063; Expanding black voting instantly reversed white officials’ refusal of black demands — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 84; Black voters helped pass an annexation that diluted their own electoral strength — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 96